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THOMAS JEFFERSON 

Author of the Declaration of American Independence and the 

Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom. 



SAFEGUARDS of LIBERTY 

OR 
LIBERTY PROTECTED BY LAWS 



BY 

W. B. SWANEY 

OF THE CHATTANOOGA BAR 

Instructor in Contracts and Private Corporations 

in Chattanooga College of Law 

Ex-President Bar Association of Tennessee 

Member American Bar Association 

President University of Tennessee Alumni Association 



u No Free Government or the 
Blessing of Liberty Can Be 
Preserved to any People .... 
but by Frequent Recurrence 
to Fundamental Principles " 
(Virginia Bill of Rights) 



NEW YORK 

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 

AMERICAN BRANCH: 35 West 32nd Street 
LONDON, TORONTO. MELBOURNE. AND BOMBAY 

1920 



3 yC** 



COPYRIGHT. 1920 

BY THE 

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 

AMERICAN BRANCH 



Printed in U.S.A. 



©CI.A597329 



INSCRIBED TO 

HON. JAMES MARSHALL HEAD, 

OF THE BOSTON BAR, FORMERLY OF THE GALLATIN 
AND NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, BARS, AS A SLIGHT 
TOKEN OF MY APPRECIATION OF HIS FRIENDSHIP 
AND SERVICE AS TUTOR IN THE LAW. HAD HE BEEN 
MY BROTHER HE COULD NOT HAVE SHOWN ME 
MORE CONSIDERATION OR GIVEN ME MORE ATTEN- 
TION WHILE I STUDIED THE HARVARD LAW COURSE 
FOR OVER THIRTY MONTHS UNDER HIS DIRECTION. 



FOREWORD 

Mr. Svvaney has made a most interesting and 
valuable contribution to the literature and discus- 
sions of the day in the chapters of this book. A 
colossal war like that from which the world has 
just emerged, destroying autocratic governments, 
shaking others to their foundations, and testing 
anew the strength of those principles which have 
conferred upon the human race the great boons of 
liberty and democracy, is too frequently followed by 
a period of general collapse and reaction w T ith an 
accompaniment of moral and intellectual astigma- 
tism which prevents men from seeing and thinking 
clearly at the very time when straight thinking and 
clear vision are the essential safeguards of civili- 
zation. 

To have presented to us in compact form and 
pleasing literary style the origin, growth, and prog- 
ress of that civil and religious freedom which is the 
very lifeblood of modern democracy, is a genuine 
service to humanity. It is of the utmost impor- 
tance that the people of the world should understand 
more than ever before the true meaning of democ- 
racy and of the principles which should guide and 
control democratic governments. 

A study of our own Constitution and of the great 



FOREWORD 

debates which led to its formulation and adoption, 
as well as of the works of so profound a democratic 
philosopher as Jefferson, convincingly proves the 
wisdom which led the founders of our Government 
to declare for freedom of speech, of the press, and 
of peaceable assembly. These are, to my mind, the 
surest antidotes for the false and poisonous doc- 
trines of agitators and unsound thinkers. So long 
as these constitutional guarantees are preserved false 
opinion can be met and countered in the open arena 
of debate and discussion and the concealed evils 
which will be bred by foolish attempts at repression 
can be combated at their source. 

It is a time to drink deeply from the fountains of 
wisdom and knowledge established by our fore- 
fathers and those who preceded them in the struggle 
for religious and civil liberty. Many gave their lives 
for this great cause with a heroism and nobility 
which must for all time command the admiration 
and affection of every lover of humanity and every 
champion of genuine democracy. 

W. G. McAdoo. 

New York, 
May, 1920. 



PREFACE 

This small volume is a by-product of the war 
between Autocracy and Democracy. There is noth- 
ing so conducive to the study of history and geog- 
raphy as war. It naturally followed from the issues 
involved that the question of government would be 
paramount. With the irresistible tendency to free 
governments nothing can be more instructive and 
helpful than the study of English and American 
theories and practices in self-government. 

For many years, while teaching Contracts and 
Private Corporation, in the Chattanooga College of 
Law, it has been the privilege of the writer to make 
addresses on the life and writings of Thomas Jef- 
ferson, and to urge upon law students from prac- 
tically all of the States the careful study of the 
Declaration of Independence, the Statute for Re- 
ligious Freedom of Virginia, and the other price- 
less blessings conferred on the world by him, as the 
result of his life-long devotion to the causes of 
truth, freedom, and justice. 

The more one studies the great charters of Eng- 
lish and American liberty, the more one realizes 
law is a growth, and that the only way to get a 
thorough grasp of the fundamental principles of the 
governments of these nations is by the study of 



PREFACE 

these charters. Educators have long since learned 
the difference between text-books on literature which 
contain opinions of authors and those which give 
enough of the writings of the authors for the pupil 
to form his own estimate of them. Modern his- 
torians have learned the intrinsic worth of docu- 
mentary evidence, until it has now become a truism 
that there can be no genuine history without docu- 
ments; or, as Langlois tersely says: " There is no 
substitute for documents; no documents, no his- 
tory" 

The three great American charters of liberty 
made the basis of this volume contain the funda- 
mental principles of the English and American gov- 
ernments, and when fully understood they furnish 
the only antidote to all of the erroneous and dan- 
gerous ideas of government now rampant in the 
Eastern Hemisphere and threatening this country. 
The only effectual method of combating error is 
with the truth ; hence the necessity for a careful and 
thorough study of these great documents. 

Well aware of the many defects that are ap- 
parent, and regretting my inability to continue the 
subject and discuss the Constitution of the United 
States and its various amendments, and especially 
the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth amend- 
ments, I have decided to trust a generous public with 
this first serious effort in a new role. 

W. B. SWANEY. 

Chattanooga, 
June, 1920. 



CONTENTS 
CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

A treatise on the Declaration of Independence, the De- 
claratory Charter of our Rights and the Rights of 
Man 3 

The new method of studying government from English 
and American charters 4 

A synopsis of the Declaration of Independence . . 5 

The fundamental truths set out in the Declaration are 
same as those taught by Milton and Burke ... 9 

The indictment against George III for repeated injuries 
and usurpations 11 

Historical development of the u Ancient Liberties " of 
English people beginning with Anglo-Saxons . . 16 

Synopsis of the M Summary View of the rights of British 
America," written by Jefferson 18 

Education and training of Colonial Lawyers in English 
Inns of Court and American Colleges .... 22 

George Mason's masterful work in framing Bill of 
Rights and Constitution for Virginia .... 24 

John Adams' account of passage of resolution by Con- 
tinental Congress advising Colonies to adopt forms of 
government to secure peace and good order ... 26 

Edmund Burke's speech on Conciliation with Colonies . 31 

Influence of Blackstone's Commentaries on American 
Lawyers and Courts 37 

Statesmen of this country have not always adhered to 
the Declaration as shown in framing United States 
Constitution 38 

Jefferson favored the adoption of a Bill of Rights, but 
advised that the Constitution be ratified and Amend- 
ments he made later 40 

Jefferson was the consistent enemy of slavery . . 41 

Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin, greatest factors in adopt- 
ion of Declaration -45 

Eulogies on their lives by Daniel Webster and William 
Wirt 46 

Comments on the Declaration of Independence by Henry 

Cabot Lodge and Winston Churchill 46 

ix 



x CONTENTS 

CHAPTER II 

PAGE 

Thomas Jefferson as the builder of a State ... 48 
Jefferson was a profound thinker and possessed of power 
of statement and ability to discover simple, elemental 

truths amounting to genius 50 

Jefferson resigned his seat in Continental Congress and 

was elected to House of Delegates in Virginia . . 56 
Convention in Virginia adopted Jefferson's preamble to 

State Constitution # . . . .57 

Jefferson's most celebrated bills for abolition of law of 

entails and law of primogeniture . . . • . • 59 
General review of Statutes drawn by Jefferson with 

Madison's comment 60 

Jefferson considered the statute for religious freedom 

next in importance to the Declaration .... 67 
Mason embodied idea in Article XVI of Bill of Rights . 67 
Baptist and other dissenting churches joined in attack on 

established Church in Virginia .68 

Jefferson's estimate of the Statute as related by Wirt. 
Statute of descents and distributions, a model for law- 
makers and is unique in history and legislation . . 72 
Jefferson's statute for diffusion of knowledge . . . 72 
Jefferson's faith in ability of people to govern them- 
selves . .-..'• . 74 

Difference between English and American ideas of Gov- 
ernment 74 

Analysis and comments on Bill of Rights ... 76 

Extracts from Milton's Areopagitica 80 

Excerpt from Holmes' " The Common Law " . . . 84 
Moral substratum of English and American Law as 

shown by Taine and Chancellor Kent .... 84 
Contrast between English and American Systems of 

jurisprudence and the Roman System .... 86 
How abuses and usurpations may be corrected ... 87 
Washington's advice 87 



CHAPTER III 

Jefferson's contribution to the Nation and to the World . 90 
Remarkable that Jefferson never attempted to frame a 

form of government for the Colonies .... 90 

His confidence in Dr. Franklin 91 

After serving as Legislator and Governor in Virginia, 

Jefferson is again elected delegate to Congress . . 91 

Prepared address of Congress to General Washington . 92 

Author of Money unit . . 92 



CONTENTS xi 



PAGE 



History of Ordinance of 1787 93 

Jefferson's first example of retrenchment .... 98 
Jefferson's letter to General Washington in regard to 

order of the Cincinnati 98 

Elected Minister Plenipotentiary to assist Dr. Franklin 

and John Adams 99 

Draft of instructions to Commissioners .... 99 

Negotiated Treaty with Prussia 100 

Succeeds Dr. Franklin as Minister to France . . . 100 
His recommendations in regard to Barbary Pirates . . 101 

Was a popular and influential Minister 101 

Published his "Notes on Virginia'' 101 

Keeps in touch with politics at home and favored Con- 
stitutional Convention 102 

His letters on this subject 103 

Witnesses opening scenes of French Revolution . . 106 
Not contaminated by French, but an adviser . . . 11 1 
Notes on Virginia describes State Government of Vir- 
ginia and insists that a new Constitution be drafted . 11 1 
Our government made of freest principles of English 
Constitution with others derived from natural right 

and reason 112 

Practical Minister and sends upland rice seed and olive 

plants to U. S 112 

An inventive genius and while in Paris invented mould- 
board for plow. Gold medal voted him by Royal 
Agriculture Society of the Seine. Also invented fold- 
ing camp stool, revolving office chair, two wheeled 

sulky, copying press and pedometer 113 

Also an Architect and designed Monticello and build- 
ings on Campus of University of Virginia . . 113 
Is appointed first Secretary of State and established 

American diplomacy on new basis 113 

Conflicts in opinion between Jefferson and Hamilton 
finally resulting in the two political parties . . .114 

Resigns seat in Cabinet 114 

His comments on Hamilton's ideas ©f Government . .115 
Elected president of American Philosophical Society . 117 
Elected Vice President of United States . . . .117 

Prepares "Jefferson's Manual" 117 

Passage of Alien and Sedition Laws leads to formation 
of Republican party and election of Jefferson and 

Burr 118 

Elected President by House of Representatives over 

Burr . . .119 

His tribute to John Adams showing how he was misled . 119 
Reign of Terror in France calculated to shake faith of 
most men in Democratic Government . . . .121 



xii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

John Adams' letter to Jefferson on this subject . . . 122 
He undertook to restore government to the people and 

make it truly republican . 123 

First Cabinet, Madison, Gallatin, Dearborn, Smith, and 

Levi Lincoln 123 

Abolished levees, walked to Capitol and was sworn in as 
President and sent his message to Congress instead of 
going in person in state . . . . . . . . 123 

First inaugural address defined Republican principles in 

masterly way 124 

First fruits of his presidency 125 

His administration and those of Madison and Monroe 
resulted in "Era of good feeling" and establishment 
of Republican Government . 128 

John Fiskes' comments on founders of our government . 128 
Conflict between ideas of Jefferson and John Marshall . 130 

and result therefrom 130 

Marbury vs. Madison and other opinions by Marshall . 131 
Excerpts from Garfield and Warren's History of Ameri- 
can Bar 133 

Jefferson's views on Federal Judiciary 134 

Taylor's charge that Jefferson's teachings caused war 

between the States not correct 139 

Jefferson's opinion of disunion, Hartford Convention and 

slavery 140 

He was a progressive statesman and insisted that insti- 
tutions should advance and keep pace with the times . 141 
Resolution of the General Assembly of Virginia con- 
gratulating him upon what he had accomplished . . 143 
Tribute of Senator Hoar of Massachusetts . . .144 
Lincoln's Tribute 147 



CHAPTER IV 

Growth and development of civil and religious liberty . 150 
Certain fixed truths in both which are fundamental to 

growth of liberty 151 

Influence of Bible and Greek literature on spiritual life 

of modern times 151 

Kings and Tyrants have ever had their apologists . . 152 
Underlying truths of civil and religious liberty are as old 

as the race and are implanted in the bosom of man . 153 

Jefferson's preamble to statute for religious freedom . 153 

Truth always right 154 



CONTENTS xiii 

PAGE 

Dominant factors in growth of civil and religious liberty 
in United States are Puritans of New England and 
their descendants, Scotch-Irish and their descendants . 154 

Both were devotees to education and their religious train- 
ing and forms of Church government in Europe and 
America produced a democratic spirit .... 154 

Excerpts from Caldwell's " Puritan Races and Puritan 
Living," touching Holland, Scotland, Ireland, New 
England and Southern States 156 

Buckle's theory as to influence of climate, food, soil, and 
general aspect of Nature 162 

Origin of Teutonic ideas of freedom 162 

Watuaga settlement by Scotch-Irish West of the Al- 
leghanies in 1772 163 

Description of government of Teutons by Tacitus . . 164 

These customs and usages are the germs of free con- 
stitutions based on individualism 165 

Same is true in Colonies and United States . . . 166 

Magna Charta is only a confirmation of some of these 
principles ... 166 

Of the sixty-three Articles of the Magna Charta only 
some six are now of real importance .... 167 

Contests for freedom in England have been chiefly be- 
tween the King and the people 168 

American Colonists were first to frame a Charter of 
liberty for " All Men " 169 

Contrast between Declaration of Independence and the 
Magna Charta in language used proves this . . . 169 

Contrast between free governments and Prussian Autoc- 
racy 170 

Free Governments resulting from World War and bless- 
ings arising therefrom 170 

Statement of allies forward-looking and mostly influ- 
enced by Mr. Wilson's utterances 171 

English and American history should be studied from 
reliable sources 172 

Great contributions made to English and American con- 
stitutional history by John Fiske 173 

Views of Fiske epitomized 174 

Lincoln founded Republican party of today on principles 
of Declaration and completed Jefferson's plan by lib- 
erating the slaves 180 

Great Britain freed slaves by a decision of a Court . . 181 

Decision in Dred Scott case made war inevitable . . 181 

Effects on Union of Spanish-American war and the 
world war between Autocracy and Democracy . . 182 



xiv CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Noble parts taken in this work by Roosevelt, Taft, and 
Wilson 182 

Quotation from Jefferson's first inaugural address . . 183 

Americans greatest of idealists and exhibited spirit of 
Crusaders for freedom of humanity . . . . . 183 

World war will produce higher types of patriotism . . 183 

Issues in War between States produced Lincoln, Lee, 
Jackson, Grant . 184 

Glory of English-speaking nations that they always pro- 
duce men equal to every crisis 185 

This is especially true of United States from Washing- 
ton to Wilson . . . 185 

Wilson will write new declaration of freedom from 
tyranny for Central European Countries ... 185 

Speeches of Mr. Wilson and George V, showing reliance 
on safeguards of liberty 186 

These safeguards have stood the test of ages in peace and 
war and are predominant in the world today . . . 188 

Law is a growth and the supreme triumph of English 
statesmanship is that it solved the problem of devising 
a machine to make and enforce laws 500 years before 
other Nations 189 

United States have broadened and improved on English 
model, especially in Federal Union 189 

Napoleon called our plan Ideology 190 

League of Nations not half so Utopian a scheme now 
as was Federal Union 190 

Opposition following same tactics as did those opposing 
the United States Constitution 190 

International law has been for centuries abundant and 
plain enough to constitute a code, all that is needed is 
a machine 190 

Conditions now most propitious and in striking contrast 
to those of 1823, when Monroe Doctrine was pro- 
claimed 190 

English and American ideas have destroyed doctrine of 
Divine rights of Kings and caused downfall of Hohen- 
zollern and Hapsburg Dynasties 191 

Slow but sure process of settling disputes between Na- 
tions by Arbitration used with success by Great Britain 
and U. S. 191 

Supreme Court of the United State a model for such a 
tribunal, as it settles disputes between States . . .191 

Court of Justice an evolution and has destroyed Code 
duello with aid of public opinion 191 

Public opinion of world will result from associated press, 
wireless telegraphy, aeroplanes, and seaplanes . . 192 



CONTENTS xv 

PAGE 

Policies of the United States must be enlarged to meet 

new conditions 192 

Leading thinkers of free nations also consciously engaged 

in this great work 193 

Constructive statesmen will solve this according to Mil- 
ton's plan 194 

Appendix A. Declaration of Independence . . . 195 

Appendix B. A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom 204 

Appendix C. Virginia's Bill of Rights .... 207 



ILLUSTRATIONS 
Thomas Jefferson .... Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

Drafting the Declaration of Independence 44 

John Milton 80 

Makers of the United States Government 12S 

Abraham Lincoln 146 



SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY; 

OR, 

LIBERTY PROTECTED BY LAWS 



CHAPTER I 

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, THE DE- 
CLATORY CHARTER OF OUR RIGHTS AND THE 
RIGHTS OF MAN 

Liberty! Freedom! On what do they rest? 
Is liberty more than a name? The titanic struggle 
which has been going on between the allied forces 
of Autocracy and the governments friendly to 
Democracy since 19 14, now so happily ended, was 
without question one of the most momentous in the 
history of mankind. Not only was the life of one 
of the greatest nations of Europe in modern times 
involved, but the cause of liberty throughout the 
world was at stake. 

In view of such a catastrophe, it is of the utmost 
importance to consider how in the future the liber- 
ties of nations may be protected, and all kinds of 
tyranny may be obliterated. As a result of this war 
there will be a greater interest taken in the study 
of government everywhere. There will necessarily 
be a most searching inquiry by students of govern- 
ment here and in all other countries as to the 
methods of safeguarding liberty. 

This inquiry will obviously not be confined to any 

3 



4 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

nation, but will be most actively displayed in the 
new nations coming into political existence as the 
result of the war. There will also be a most thor- 
ough re-examination in our own country and in 
Great Britain of these fundamental questions, since 
many new and difficult problems will, without 
doubt, call for solution as the result of the war. 
For this purpose can anything be more helpful, nay 
necessary, than a careful and thorough study of the 
great charters of English and American liberty? 

While so wise a statesman as Edmund Burke has 
said, " It is always to be lamented when men are 
driven to search into the foundations of the com- 
monwealth ", it must be remembered that during 
the last half-century a new method of making this 
research has been adopted by historians, and espe- 
cially by students of government, in dealing with 
such inquiries. All of the great charters of Eng- 
land have been explored and made available to the 
layman, as well as to the student of laws, and a vast 
fund of new facts has been gathered, and new 
and improved methods have been adopted in 
studying and writing the history of laws and in- 
stitutions. 

This work has been most admirably done by 
such great scholars as Pollock, Maitland, and others, 
not to mention the epoch-making works of Stubbs, 
Freeman, Hannis Taylor, John Fiske, and others on 
constitutional law. Select English charters have 
been made available to the general reader in English 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 5 

by Adams and Stephens and other publications ; and 
Mabel Hill has edited a selection of English and 
American charters under the title of " Liberty 
Documents ", with a few contemporaneous com- 
ments thereon. Unfortunately Miss Hill failed to 
develop the Declaration of Independence, and as- 
sign to it its rightful position as the greatest charter 
of human liberty, as it manifestly is, and no effort 
was made by her to do the scantest justice to its 
author. 

The object of the present treatise is to present, 
in the briefest manner possible, a synopsis of this 
masterly and epoch-making document; to endeavor 
to show the far-reaching effect of the great truths 
of constitutional law constituting the framework of 
this charter of our liberties; and in some measure 
to do justice to its author and his contemporaries. 
As a prelude to this investigation the reader is re- 
quested and urged to read over carefully the Dec- 
laration of Independence, which is made Ap- 
pendix A. 

The following brief analysis of this great docu- 
ment will be made the basis of this discussion : 

(1) The Declaration of Independence is the 
charter of our liberties and was intended as such 
by its framers. 

(2) In order properly to understand it, it is in- 
dispensably necessary to have a thorough knowl- 
edge of the men who framed it and the conditions 
and circumstances which called it forth. 



6 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

(3) Its author, Thomas Jefferson, is necessarily 
the central figure of this inquiry; and all English 
history, and especially that of the laws and juris- 
prudence of England, constitutes its background. 

(4) Though its central theme is liberty, yet the 
immediate subject is the vindication of British lib- 
erty as enjoyed by the British Colonies in North 
America at that time. 

(5) It is in the form of an indictment against 
George III for abuses and usurpations practiced by 
him against the Colonies, coupled with an appeal to 
mankind for a justification of their rebellion from 
his tyrannical acts, and a declared purpose to organ- 
ize a new and independent government for them- 
selves. 

(6) The fact is recorded that warnings had been 
given the British people of the numerous attempts 
made by Parliament to extend unwarrantable juris- 
diction over the Colonies and that a deaf ear had 
been turned to all appeals for protection of their 
rights. 

(7) It is shown that all appeals to George III 
and their British brethren for the protection of their 
liberties having failed, the only relief found was, as 
stated, to " acquiesce in the necessity which de- 
nounces the separation from Great Britain and hold 
them, as they hold the rest of mankind, enemies in 
war, in peace, friends ". 

(8) The concluding paragraph contains the for- 
mal Declaration of Independence of the United 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 7 

States of America from the British Government 
and asserts their rights as " free and independent 
states to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, 
establish commerce, and do all other acts and things 
which independent states may of right do ". 

(9) The omissions from the original draft 
made by Mr. Jefferson are significant in many re- 
spects, but especially of those showing his views on 
African slavery at that early period. 

The opening sentence of the Declaration of In- 
dependence furnishes a striking contrast to any 
other form of government that was ever attempted 
to be organized in this, that it asserted the right 
of the Colonies to assume among the powers of the 
earth the separate and equal station to which the 
laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, 
and that a decent respect for the opinions of man- 
kind requires that they should declare the causes 
which impel them to the separation. 

The first part of the second paragraph deals with 
the rights of individuals and fixes the basis of our 
government on the only true foundation of genu- 
inely democratic institutions — to-wit: 



"We hold these truths to be self-evident; that 
all men are created equal ; that they are endowed 
by their Creator w 7 ith certain inalienable rights; 
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness; that to secure these rights govern- 
ments are instituted among men, deriving their just 
powers from the consent of the governed. " 



8 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

Had the author of this great instrument never 
written anything except the preamble and the fore- 
going portions of this charter he would have been 
entitled to the first place in the ranks of the world's 
greatest patriots and constructive statesmen. 

These truths are immortal, but we must remem- 
ber they did not originate with Mr. Jefferson. He 
enjoys, however, the unique distinction of having 
been the first to embalm them in such simple and 
lucid language that they cannot be improved upon ; 
hence they will survive the wreck of empires and 
principalities, and they have become the beacon light 
of all peoples struggling for liberty throughout the 
world and will so continue in all future generations. 
Under one form or another these words have been 
a target for the enemies of popular government 
both in this country and elsewhere. The more, 
however, they have been subjected to the test the 
greater has been their triumph. Indeed, just now 
they are more potential than they have ever been, 
for they constitute the best and only solution for all 
forms of Autocracy now existing in Europe and 
elsewhere. 

If there be any fact fully demonstrated by the 
history of England, the United States of America, 
and the Anglo-Saxon people, it is that the truths 
here uttered are the cornerstones of Anglo-Saxon 
institutions, and although often obscured and held 
in check by tyrants or other enemies of the people, 
they have persistently asserted themselves and are 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 9 

today the bulwarks of English and American 
liberty. 

John Milton, Edmund Burke, and Abraham Lin- 
coln have stated these truths in striking terms, 
worthy to be compared to that of Mr. Jefferson. 

Milton said : 

" No man who knows aught, can be so stupid as 
to deny that all men were naturally born free ; born 
to command and not to obey. They agreed by 
common league to bind each other from mutual in- 
jury and jointly to defend themselves against any 
that gave disturbance or opposition to such agree- 
ments. Hence came cities, towns, and common- 
wealths. This authority and power being origi- 
nally and naturally ip every one of them, and 
unitedly in them all, they communicated and de- 
rived to one or more than one. The first was called 
a king; the other magistrates. Not to be their 
Lords and Masters, but to be their deputies and 
commissioners. It follows that since the king or 
magistrate holds his authority of the people, for 
their good in the first place, and not his own, then 
may the people as oft as they shall judge it for the 
best either choose him or reject him, retain him or 
depose him, though no tyrant, merely by the lib- 
erty and right of free-born men to be governed as 
seems to them best. That Governors are not lightly 
to be changed is true with respect to the people's 
prudence, not to be the king's right. ") 

" Nature teaches us to bear with oppression so 
long as there is a necessity for so doing/' 

"What the people may lawfully do against a 
tyrant no man of clear judgment need go further to 
be guided than by the principles of nature in man." 



io SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

Burke said : 

" In all forms of government the people is the 
true legislator ; and whether the immediate and in- 
strumental cause of the law be a single person or 
many, the remote and efficient cause is the consent 
of the people, either actual or implied; and such 
consent is absolutely essential to its validity. In 
reality there are two, and only two, foundations 
of law; and they are both conditions without which 
nothing can give it any force : I mean Equity and 
Utility." 

Lincoln said: 

" I have never had a feeling politically that did 
not spring from the sentiments embodied in the 
Declaration of Independence. . . . The nation 
must control whatever concerns the nation. The 
State, or any other minor community, must control 
whatever concerns them. The individual shall con- 
trol whatever exclusively concerns him. This is real 
popular sovereignty. . . . That this nation under 
.God shall have a new birth of freedom; and that 
government of the people, by the people, for the 
people shall not perish from the earth." 

Freeman in his short treatise entitled " The 
Growth of the English Constitution," and John 
Fiske in a small volume entitled " American Politi- 
cal Ideas," trace local self-government to its com- 
mon source and demonstrate conclusively that the 
Anglo-Saxons rested their governments upon the 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE n 

consent of the governed. The best proof of this 
fact, however, is found in the charters of English 
liberty. 

The remainder of this paragraph is in keeping 
with the parts quoted, and it naturally follows, if 
we concede the first to be true, " That whenever any 
form of Government becomes destructive of these 
ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to 
abolish it, and to institute new government, laying 
its foundation on such principles, and organizing 
its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most 
likely to effect their safety and happiness." 

" The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates/' by John 
Milton, is a masterly and indisputable argument in 
support of the right of the people to throw off the 
dominion of tyrants. The Acts of the British Par- 
liament, in establishing the Protectorate of Oliver 
Cromwell, and the election of William and Mary 
to succeed James II as a result of the " glorious 
revolution " of 1688, are sufficient precedents, if 
any were needed, to justify these declarations. 

The great indictment against George III properly 
begins with this sentence : " The history of the pres- 
ent king of Great Britain is a history of repeated 
injuries and usurpations all having in direct object 
the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these 
States." The colonists appealed to the public opin- 
ion of mankind, a new tribunal in politics at that 
time. The indictment then proceeds to go into par- 
ticulars and the proof is adduced in the most cir- 



12 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

cumstantial way, and public records are made the 
basis of each charge. 

Attention is called to the brevity, simplicity, and 
directness of each charge, freedom from all legal 
phraseology common to lawyers, statesmen, and 
jurists of former times, and the striking contrast 
between this charter and all of the great English 
charters. 

Each count in the indictment begins with " He ". 

Now adverting again to the text : 

" The history of the present King of Great 
Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpa- 
tions all having in direct object the establishment of 
an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove 
this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. 

"He has refused his assent to laws the most 
wholesome and necessary for the public good. 

" He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of 
immediate and pressing importance, unless sus- 
pended in their operation till his assent should be 
obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly 
neglected to attend to them. 

He has refused to pass other laws for the ac- 
commodation of large districts of people, unless 
those people would relinquish the right of represen- 
tation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, 
and formidable to tyrants only. 

* He has called together legislative bodies at 
places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the 
depository of their public records, for the sole pur- 
pose of fatiguing them into compliance with his 
measures. 

" He has dissolved representative houses repeat- 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 13 

edly for opposing with manly firmness his invasions 
of the rights of the people. 

" He has refused for a long time after such dis- 
solutions to cause others to be elected, whereby the 
legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have 
returned to the people at large for their exercise, 
the State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all 
the dangers of invasion from without and convul- 
sions within. 

" He has endeavored to prevent the population of 
these States; for that purpose obstructing the laws 
for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass 
others to encourage their migraticms hither, and 
raising the conditions of new appropriations of 
lands. 

" He has obstructed the administration of justice 
by refusing his assent to laws for establishing 
judiciary powers. 

11 He has made judges dependent on his will alone 
for tenure of their offices, and the amount and pay- 
ment of their salaries. 

M He has erected a multitude of new offices, and 
sent hither swarms of new officers to harass our 
people and eat out their substance. 

" He has kept among us in times of peace stand- 
ing armies without the consent of our legislatures. 

" He has affected to render the military indepen- 
dent of, and superior to, the civil power. 

11 He has combined with others to subject us to 
a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions and un- 
acknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their 
acts of pretended legislation for quartering large 
bodies of armed troops among us. 

" For protecting them by a mock trial from pun- 
ishment for any murders which they should commit 
on the inhabitants of these States. 



i 4 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

"For cutting off our trade with all parts of the 
world. 

" For imposing taxes on us without our consent. 

" For depriving us in many cases of the benefits 
of trial by jury. 

"For transporting us beyond seas to be tried 
for pretended offences. 

" For abolishing the free system of English laws 
in a neighboring province, establishing therein an 
arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, 
so as to render it at once an example and fit instru- 
ment for introducing the same absolute rule into 
these Colonies; 

" For taking away our charters, abolishing our 
most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the 
forms of our governments; 

" For suspending our own legislatures, and de- 
claring themselves invested with power to legislate 
for us in all cases whatsoever. 

" He has abdicated government here declaring 
us out of his protection and waging war against us. 

" He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, 
burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our 
people. 

" He is at this time transporting large armies of 
foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, 
desolation and tyranny already begun with circum- 
stances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in 
the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the 
head of a civilized nation. 

" He has constrained our fellow citizens taken 
captive on the high seas, to bear arms against 
their country, to become the executioners of their 
friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their 
hands. 

" He has excited domestic insurrection among us, 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 15 

and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of 
our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose 
known rule of war-fare is an undistinguished de- 
struction of all ages, sexes and conditions/' 



The gravamen of the charges constitute viola- 
tions of rights belonging to the colonists as British 
subjects, and are either omissions to protect certain 
rights or willful violations of others; and when com- 
bined they cover almost all of the well-known 
rights, privileges, and immunities of the subject, 
which were known to exist by virtue of the great 
charters and laws of Great Britain, at that time. 

The first paragraph was intended by Mr. Jeffer- 
son to assert in general terms the nature and char- 
acter of the rights of the British colonists as well 
as the rights of man generally, and the specifications 
in the many counts of the indictment were intended 
to show that George III, as the responsible head of 
the British nation at that time, was directly respon- 
sible for the " abuses and usurpations " alleged, 
which if tolerated by the colonists would " reduce 
them under absolute despotism ". 

In concluding the indictment it is averred that 
" in every stage of these oppressions we have peti- 
tioned for redress in the most humble terms; our 
repeated petitions have been answered only by re- 
peated injuries ". 

The conclusion inevitably follows : " A Prince 
whose character is thus marked by every act which 



16 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free 
people." 

The omitted sentence just here predicts that 
future generations will scarcely believe it possible 
for these charges to be true, and concludes with this 
significant phrase, " for tyranny over a people 
fostered and fixed in principles of freedom ". 
Upon what legal basis do these various allegations 
of "abuses and usurpations" against this tyrant 
rest and how was it possible for them to be true 
in view of " fixed principles of freedom " ? 

Herein will be found a historical development of 
the " ancient liberties " of the English people, be- 
ginning with the Anglo-Saxons and guaranteed in 
every charter and added to in progressive ratio, the 
most notable being Magna Charta (12 15), Parlia- 
ment (1295), Petition of Right (1628), Habeas 
Corpus Act (1679), Bill of Rights (1689), and Act 
of Settlement (1 700-1 701). 

One noticeable characteristic of these and other 
English charters is the covenant made with the 
king which in the most explicit terms obligates him 
to support and uphold the liberties of his subjects; 
and nothing is left to inference. 

These " ancient liberties " did not originate with 
the charters, but were simply confirmed by them 
and were added to from time to time as they grew 
up, and become " fixed principles of freedom ". 

A careful analysis of the various counts in this 
indictment shows the grossest violations of rights of 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 17 

freemen guaranteed under these old charters and 
other laws. 

Kipling expresses in verse this story in " The Old 
Issue,'' as follows : 

" All we have of freedom, all we use or know, 
This our fathers bought for us long and long ago, 
Ancient right unnoticed as the breath we draw — 
Leave to live by no man's leave, underneath the law. 
Lance and torch and tumult, steel and grey-goose 

wing, 
Wrenched it, inch and all and all, slowly from the 

King. 
Till our fathers 'stablished, after bloody years, 
How our King is one with us, first among his peers. 
So they bought us freedom — not at little cost — 
Wherefore must we watch the King, lest our gain be 

lost. 
Over all things certain, this is sure indeed, 
Suffer not the old King ; for we know the breed." 

In this connection it should be noted that Mr. 
Jefferson in 1774 had written a pamphlet entitled 
"A Summary View of the Rights of British 
America ", a copy of which had found its way to 
England, and with a few changes was used by Mr. 
Burke as a document for opposition purposes. The 
members of the Continental Congress were also 
familiar with this pamphlet and the reputation ac- 
quired by Mr. Jefferson in writing it led to his ap- 
pointment as a member of the Committee to draft 
the Declaration and the request made of him to pre- 
pare it. It is also worthy of notice that Richard 
Henry Lee, who made the original motion on be- 



18 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

half of Virginia and ably and eloquently advocated 
it, would doubtless have been the Chairman of the 
Committee had he not been compelled to leave on 
account of the illness of his wife. 

This " Summary View " was in the form of a 
resolution which was intended to be adopted as in- 
structions to the delegates to the Continental Con- 
gress from Virginia. It set forth the theory of the 
rights of the British Colonies as having arisen from 
freemen who had conquered the savages and cleared 
the forests on their own account, and established 
their own government and supported themselves 
after the example of the Anglo-Saxons when they 
conquered England, and claimed to have all of the 
rights, privileges, and immunities of freemen, and 
that the only tie between them and Great Britain 
was a common sovereign. 

The abuses and usurpations of Parliament are set 
out with considerable detail, and especially all those 
acts attempting to interfere with the commerce of 
the Colonies, and their right to engage in certain 
manufactures and granting monopolies to court 
favorites, as well as attempts to intermeddle with 
the internal affairs of the Colonies. 

It then deals in abuses of executive power by 
George III and points out the various acts of omis- 
sion and commission with greater detail than in the 
more celebrated instrument drafted later. It is a 
truly republican instrument and enunciates substan- 
tially the same doctrines as the Declaration. It is 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 19 

framed as a petition for redress of abuses of Parlia- 
ment as well as the executive, but there is no ex- 
pression of a desire to separate from Great Britain. 
It says : " It is neither our wish nor our interest to 
separate from her. We are willing on our part to 
sacrifice everything which reason can ask, to the 
restoration of that tranquillity for which all must 
wish. On their part, let them be ready to establish 
union on a generous plan." 

The petition is a bold and fearless one and asserts 
doctrines in keeping with the author's later teach- 
ings. The following sentences are truly Jeffer- 
sonian : 

" The abolition of domestic slavery is the great 
object of desire of those Colonies where it was un- 
happily introduced in their infant state." " Kings 
are the servants and not the proprietors of the 
people." " The whole art of government con- 
sists in the art of being honest." " The God who 
gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the 
hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin 
them." " But let them not think to exclude us from 
going to other markets to dispose of those com- 
modities which they cannot use, nor to supply those 
wants which they cannot supply." " Still less, let 
it be supposed that our properties within our terri- 
tories shall be taxed or regulated by any power on 
earth, but our own." 

The proverbial conservatism of the English na- 
tion, and especially their disinclination to make radi- 
cal innovations and follow theorists in matters of 



20 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

government, is illustrated again and again in these 
great charters and is set forth in the Declaration of 
Independence in these words : 

" Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments 
long established should not be changed for slight 
and transient causes ; and accordingly all experience 
hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suf- 
fer while evils are sufferable, than to right them- 
selves by abolishing the forms to which they are 
accustomed/ ' 

" The long train of abuses and usurpations," set 
out in the Declaration, and the " patient sufferance 
of these colonists ", which had continued for a 
period of over eleven years — 1765 to 1776 — in their 
struggle against these acts of " absolute despot- 
ism ", had gradually developed a fixed belief per- 
meating the masses of the colonists that George III 
and his advisers had " in direct object the estab- 
lishment of an absolute tyranny over these States ". 

While the Declaration is in its form an indict- 
ment against George III, as before stated, and has 
by many been considered and treated as merely a 
recital of grievances resulting from abuses of execu- 
tive powers, or royal prerogatives claimed by the 
King of England at that time, a more careful 
analysis will show that the grounds of the quarrel 
were deeper and extended to the claims made by 
Parliament from the beginning. 

The reasons for attacking George III, and mak- 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 21 

ing the issues directly against the king rather than 
the British people and Parliament, were strategical 
and followed the English precedents established in 
the reigns of John and Charles I, when Magna 
Charta and Petition of Right were extorted by the 
contesting forces which represented the rights of 
such freemen as existed during those periods from 
John and Charles I. 

The Declaration records this fact in these words : 

" Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our 
British brethren. We have warned them from time 
to time of attempts by their legislature to extend 
an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have 
reminded them of the circumstances of our emigra- 
tion and settlement here. We have appealed to 
their native justice and magnanimity and we have 
conjured them by the ties of our common kindred 
to disavow these usurpations which would inevi- 
tably interrupt our connection and correspondence. 
They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and 
consanguinity. We must therefore acquiesce in the 
necessity which denounces our separation and hold 
them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in 
war, in peace friends." 

The reason for eliminating from the original 
draft the severe strictures upon the people of Eng- 
land for upholding George III and his ministers 
in the perpetration of these abuses and usurpations 
is stated by Mr. Jefferson in his Autobiography in 
these words : 



22 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

" The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in 
England worth keeping terms with, still haunted 
the minds of many. For this reason, those pas- 
sages which conveyed censures on the people of 
England were struck out, lest they should give 
them offence." 

The attack against George III was a wise one, 
from every point of view, not only on account of 
the deep-rooted antipathy against tyrants, always 
predominant in the English people; but more espe- 
cially because of the fact that the influence of the 
Crown had gradually become weak in the Colonies 
owing to the distance intervening, as well as the 
unpopularity of many, if not all, of the king's gov- 
ernors and other representatives in the Colonies. 

The colonists had also for generations exercised 
the right of self-government under their charters, 
and were skilled in all of the branches of govern- 
ment, having had their own legislatures and domes- 
tic courts. The fact that a not inconsiderable num- 
ber of the inhabitants were, or their ancestors had 
been, refugees from England on account of politi- 
cal or religious persecutions, and that the dissent- 
ing churches all had the most democratic forms of 
government, should not be overlooked. 

Another potent influence, which in a large meas- 
ure controlled the political aspect of this period, 
was the fact that a custom had grown up for many 
of the wealthy colonists to send their sons to the 
English Inns of Court for their legal education. 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 23 

Warren's " History of the American Bar " esti- 
mates the number at nearly one hundred and fifty 
between the years 1750 and 1775, and calls atten- 
tion to the fact that the American lawyer of the 
late eighteenth century was the product of either 
these English Inns of Court or of the American 
colleges, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, and the 
College of William and Mary in Virginia, and 
that it was this superior training which made. them 
the spokesman, writer, and orator of the people 
when they were compelled to resist the pretensions 
of the British Parliament and George III. 

Warren says: 

11 The training which they (the Colonial law- 
yers) received in the Inns, confined almost exclu- 
sively to the Common Laws, the habits which they 
formed there of solving all legal questions by the 
standard of English liberties and of rights of the 
English subject, proved of immense value to them 
when they became later (as so many did become) 
leaders of the American Revolution/' 



Several of the Colonies sent petitions to the Con- 
tinental Congress prior to the adoption of the 
Declaration of Independence, seeking advice in re- 
gard to framing new forms of government, which 
after some delay were granted. The Colony of 
Virginia was the first to frame and adopt a writ- 
ten constitution, and it also adopted a bill of rights 
as a part thereof. Both were adopted in June, 



24 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

1776. The Virginia Bill of Rights, and most of 
the Constitution, were prepared by George Mason. 
Mr. Jefferson was then at Philadelphia serving as 
a member of the Continental Congress, and he pre- 
pared a complete instrument embracing a bill of 
rights and a constitution, which he forwarded to 
the Convention for its consideration, but it was 
not received by them until after they had com- 
pleted their work and were about ready to adjourn. 
However, the preamble to the Constitution, as pre- 
pared by Mr. Jefferson, was accepted and used out 
of respect to him, and this accounts for its similar- 
ity to the language of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. 

The statement made by several writers that Mr. 
Jefferson borrowed many ideas and phrases from 
the Virginia Bill of Rights is erroneous for the 
evident reason that he was in Philadelphia and 
Mason was in Williamsburg, and neither was a 
plagiarist. Besides, the undisputed facts show that 
Mr. Jefferson had first written on the same general 
subject in 1774, and in 1775 in the " Summary 
View," and his reply to Lord North's conciliatory 
proposition. Both w r ere men of extraordinary abil- 
ity and were fluent writers, and were in accord in 
their views on these issues. There is absolutely 
no ground for charging plagiarism against either, 
and neither had or claimed a monopoly on the ideas, 
most of which were as old as Magna Charta; or 
of the language, which was a common inheritance. 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 25 

Section 1 of Virginia's Bill of Rights of 1776 
is somewhat more definite as to what was intended 
to be conveyed by the phrase " pursuit of happi- 
ness " used by Mr. Jefferson, and is here quoted 
in full : 

" That all men are by nature equally free and in- 
dependent, and have certain inherent rights, of 
which, when they enter a state of society, they can- 
not deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the 
enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of 
acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and 
obtaining happiness and safety." 

The Virginia Bill of Rights is the model upon 
which all future bills of rights were framed by 
the States, and it had a marked influence in caus- 
ing the adoption of the first ten amendments to 
the Constitution of the United States. All of the 
fundamental rights of the British people, guaran- 
teed by their great charters and acts of Parliament, 
tested by the experience of hundreds of years of 
self-government, suited to the condition of the Col- 
onies, were incorporated in this first bill of rights. 

For the first time in history the legislative, execu- 
tive, and judicial powers were decreed to be sep- 
arate and distinct, and were made so by the Con- 
stitution of Virginia in solemn written form. 

A question arose in the Continental Congress as 
to how these colonies should provide for " admin- 
istering justice and regulating civil police ", and the 
matter was referred to a committee, who, after 



26 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

many conferences, made reports on the various peti- 
tions, in substance recommending that the Colo- 
nies call " a free and full representation of the peo- 
ple, and that the representatives, if they think it 
necessary, establish such a form of government as 
in their judgment will best produce the happiness 
of the people and most effectually secure peace and 
good order " during the continuance of the dispute 
between Great Britain and the Colonies. 

In three of the Colonies no changes were made 
in their Colonial charters, except so far as the au- 
thority of the king was concerned; viz., in Massa- 
chusetts till 1780, in Connecticut till 1818, and in 
Rhode Island till 1842. These conventions were, 
as Jameson states, revolutionary in their character 
and did not arrogate to themselves the right to do 
more than frame governments suited as they be- 
lieved to the crisis then impending. 

The processes of thought by which these State 
constitutions and bills of rights were worked out 
afford a most interesting and instructive study in 
government. The account given of these delibera- 
tions of the Continental Congress by John Adams 
is most helpful and enlightening and indicates the 
line of thought pursued, as well as the deliberation 
and dread with which these conservative students 
of government and practical lawyers went about 
the work. Mr. Adams expressed the opinion that 
it was the duty of the Continental Congress to rec- 
ommend to the people of the Colonies to call con- 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 27 

ventions of representatives of each colony at once, 
and set up governments of their own, " for the 
people are the source of all authority and original 
of all power", to use Mr. Adams' language. He 
further says: 

" These were new, strange, and terrible doctrines 
to the greatest part of the members, but not a very 
small number heard them with apparent pleasure, 
and none more than Mr. John Rutledge, of South 
Carolina, and Mr. John Sullivan, of New Hamp- 
shire. . . . 

" Mr. Rutledge asked me my opinion of a proper 
form of government for a State. I answered him 
that any form that our people would consent to 
institute would be better than none, even if they 
placed all power in a house of representatives, and 
they should appoint governors and judges; but I 
hoped they would be wiser, and preserve the Eng- 
lish Constitution in its spirit and substance, as far 
as the circumstances of this country required or 
would permit. That no hereditary powers ever had 
existed in America, nor would they, or ought they 
be introduced or proposed; but that I hoped the 
three branches of legislature would be preserved, an 
executive, independent of the senate or council, and 
the house and, above all things, the independence 
of the judges. . . . 

" Although the opposition was still inveterate, 
many members of Congress began to hear me with 
more patience, and some began to ask me civil ques- 
tions. * How can the people institute governments? ' 
My answer was, i By conventions of representa- 
tives, freely, fairly, and proportionably chosen/ 
1 When the convention has fabricated a government, 



28 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

or a constitution rather, how do we know the peo- 
ple will submit to it?' 'If there is any doubt of 
that, the convention may send out their project of 
a constitution to the people in their several towns, 
counties, or districts, and the people make the ac- 
ceptance of it their own act/ ' But the people know 
nothing about constitutions.' ' I believe you are 
much mistaken in that supposition; if you are not, 
they will not oppose a plan prepared by their own 
chosen friends; but I believe that in every consid- 
erable portion of the people there will be found 
some men who will understand the subject as well 
as their representatives, and these will assist in 
enlightening the rest/ ' But what plan of a govern- 
ment would you advise?' 'A plan as nearly re- 
sembling the government under which we were born, 
and have lived, as the circumstances of the coun- 
try will admit. Kings we never had among us. 
Nobles we never had. Nothing hereditary ever ex- 
isted in the country, nor will the country require 
or admit of any such thing. But governors and 
councils we have always had, as well as representa- 
tives. A legislature in three branches ought to be 
preserved, and independent judges/ * Where and 
how will you get your governors and councils?' 
' By elections/ ' How — who shall elect ? ' ' The rep- 
resentatives of the people in a convention will be 
the best qualified to contrive a mode.' " 

The highest tribute that could be paid to the 
ability, manhood, and sterling character of the 
framers of these revolutionary forms of govern- 
ment is the fact that the States which were erected 
out of these Colonies never saw proper or deemed 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 29 

it expedient to change these original drafts of con- 
stitutions until after many years of experience, when 
new conditions made it advisable so to do. 

The outstanding fact in all of the State consti- 
tutions then adopted, as well as all subsequently 
adopted during the history of the United States, 
is that they have followed the Virginia plan in the 
main, invariably coupling a Bill of Rights with the 
Constitution, and have incorporated these " ancient 
liberties " belonging to them as a part of the com- 
mon inheritance of the Anglo-Saxon people, and 
have made the central truth the same as that so 
admirably stated by Mr. Jefferson in the Declara- 
tion of Independence, viz., " that all governments 
derive their just powers from the consent of the 
governed ". 

The insistence of certain writers that the Declara- 
tion of Independence deals in " glittering generali- 
ties " and is only fit for Fourth of July orators is 
not supported by the facts ; and the custom adopted 
by most Americans never to read it or to hear it 
read, except on the anniversary of its adoption, is 
most unfortunate. 

It is not only a masterly production from a lit- 
erary point of view, and well calculated to arouse 
the patriotism of our common countrymen, but it 
is a state paper of the highest dignity and impor- 
tance, and has placed its author on a pedestal of 
well-merited fame in his own country, as well as in 
every country where there is a spark of liberty left 



3 o SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

in the bosoms of men. These great truths of lib- 
erty so eloquently portrayed in the Declaration of 
Independence by Mr. Jeffprson are not of French 
origin, as was later claimed for political reasons 
by his enemies. 

John Adams and Benjamin Franklin made a most 
careful scrutiny of this instrument before it was 
submitted to the Continental Congress, and only 
slight verbal changes were made in the fundamen- 
tal propositions set forth, and there was no change 
whatever made in this vital point, to-wit : " That 
all governments derive their just powers from the 
consent of the governed." 

This was the first and greatest step taken by our 
ancestors to rid themselves and the Western Hemi- 
sphere of kings; and the Monroe Doctrine was its 
natural outgrowth. They were thoroughly satisfied 
to part company with King George III, and Mr. 
Jefferson's indictment was heartily concurred in by 
the greatest of the leaders and the people as the 
result of more than ten years' agitation and study 
of British laws and institutions in an effort to safe- 
guard their liberties. 

The majority of the members of the Continental 
Congress were certainly in point of ability and wide 
knowledge of the laws of England and in states- 
manship equal to the membership of the British 
Parliament, and were in a pre-eminently better posi- 
tion to lead the colonists. 

In addition to this, the active support given to 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 31 

the cause of the Colonies by Burke and Pitt was 
far-reaching" in its influence not only on the direct 
issues involved, but in arousing that " fierce spirit 
of liberty" mentioned by Mr. Burke in his memo- 
rable speech on " Conciliation with the Colonies ". 
Mr. Burke was the only man of his age who could 
have made this unparalleled speech, and the fact 
that the British Parliament could not and did not 
grasp the facts and arguments presented by him, 
and solve the problems which were then compara- 
tively easy of solution, demonstrates conclusively 
the danger to any country of allowing a weak king, 
surrounded by mediocre court favorites, to dominate 
the brains and heart of a nation. 

No one can properly understand the magnitude 
of the issues involved without reading and study- 
ing this speech of Mr. Burke. Nowhere else can 
be found a more exhaustive discussion of the sub- 
ject or a more lifelike picture of the American Col- 
onies, with the vast and limitless resources of the 
country. The delineation of the colonists, and espe- 
cially their love of freedom, is incomparable. The 
imagination required to paint the picture of the 
people and country by one who had never visited the 
country is only equaled by Mr. Burke's masterly 
speeches in the trial of Warren Hastings, when he 
duplicated, but did not excel, this speech in the 
pictures which he portrayed of the East Indies. The 
long, tedious, patriotic, brilliant, and unselfish ef- 
forts of Mr. Burke in behalf of the Colonies of 



32 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

North America and East India constitute his best 
title to fame as a statesman. 

Underlying all of these speeches will be found 
the same great truths upon which all good govern- 
ments should and must rest, as well as a historic 
development of English liberty, and the conclusion 
necessarily follows that English liberty has ever been 
more than mere abstractions. To prove these as- 
sertions let Mr. Burke speak for himself : 

"In this character of 'the Americans, a love of 
freedom is the predominating feature which marks 
and distinguished the whole; and as an ardent is 
always a jealous affection, your Colonies become 
suspicious, restive, and untractable whenever they 
see the least attempt to wrest from them by force, 
or shuffle from them by chicane, what they think 
the only advantage worth living for. This fierce 
spirit of liberty is stronger in the English Colonies 
probably than in any other people of the earth, and 
this from a great variety of powerful causes ; which, 
to understand the true temper of their minds and 
the direction which this spirit takes, it will not be 
amiss to lay open somewhat more largely. 

" First, the people of the Colonies are descend- 
ants of Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation 
which still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored, 
her freedom. The Colonists emigrated from you 
when this part of your character was most predom- 
inant; and they took this bias and direction the 
moment they parted from your hands. They are 
therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to lib- 
erty according to English ideas, and on English 
principles. Abstract liberty, like other mere ab- 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 33 

stractions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in 
some sensible object; and every nation has formed 
to itself some favorite point, which by way of 
eminence becomes the criterion of their happi- 
ness. 

" The Colonies draw from you, as with their life- 
blood, these ideas and principles. Their love of lib- 
erty, as with you, fixed and attached on this specific 
point of taxing. Liberty might be safe, or might 
be endangered, in twenty other particulars without 
their being much pleased or alarmed. Here they 
felt its pulse; and as they found that best, they 
thought themselves sick or sound. . . . 

" They were further confirmed in this pleasing 
error by the form of their provincial legislative as- 
semblies. Their governments are popular in an high 
degree ; some are merely popular ; in all the popular 
representative is the most weighty; and this share 
of the people in their ordinary government never 
fails to inspire them with lofty sentiments, and with 
a strong aversion from whatever tends to deprive 
them of their chief importance. 

" If anything were wanting to this necessary oper- 
ation of the form of government, religion would 
have given it a complete effect. Religion, always 
a principle of energy, in this new people is no way 
worn out or impaired; and their mode of profess- 
ing it is also one main cause of this free spirit. The 
people are Protestants; and of that kind which is 
the most adverse to all implicit submission of mind 
and opinion. This is a persuasion not only favor- 
able to liberty, but built upon it. I do not think, 
Sir, that the reason of this averseness in the dis- 
senting churches from all that looks like absolute 
governments is so much to be sought in their re- 
ligious tenets as in their history. Every one knows 



34 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

that the Roman Catholic religion is at least co-eval 
with most of the governments where it prevails; that 
it has generally gone hand in hand with them, and 
received great favor and every kind of support from 
authority. The Church of England too was formed 
from her cradle under the nursing care of regular 
governments. But the dissenting interests have 
sprung up in direct opposition to all the ordinary 
powers of the world, and could justify that oppo- 
sition only on a strong claim to natural liberty. 
Their very existence depended on the powerful and 
unremitted assertion of that claim. All Protestant- 
ism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of 
dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our 
Northern Colonies is a refinement on the principle 
of resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and 
the protestantism of the Protestant religion. This 
religion, under a variety of denominations agree- 
ing in nothing but in the communion of the spirit of 
liberty, is predominant in most of the Northern 
Provinces, where the Church of England, notwith- 
standing its legal rights, is in reality no more than 
a private sect, not composing most probably the 
tenth of the people. The Colonies left England 
when this spirit was high, and in the emigrants 
was the highest of all ; even that stream of foreign- 
ers which has been constantly flowing into these 
colonies has, for the greatest part, been composed of 
dissenters from the establishments of their several 
countries, who have brought with them a temper 
and character far from alien to that of the people 
with whom they mixed. 

" Sir, I can perceive by their manner that some 
gentlemen object to the latitude of this descrip- 
tion, because in the Southern Colonies the Church 
of England forms a large body, and has a regular 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 35 

establishment. It is certainly true. There is, how- 
ever, a circumstance attending these colonies which, 
in my opinion, fully counterbalances this difference, 
and makes the spirit of liberty still more high and 
haughty than in those to the northward. It is that 
in Virginia and the Carolinas they have a vast multi- 
tude of slaves. Where this is the case in any part 
of the world, those who are free are by far the most 
proud and jealous of their freedom. Freedom is to 
them not only an enjoyment, but a kind of rank 
and privilege. Not seeing there, that freedom, as in 
countries where it is a common blessing and as broad 
and general as the air, may be united with much 
abject toil, with great misery, with all the exterior 
of servitude; liberty looks, amongst them, like some- 
thing that is more noble and liberal. I do not mean, 
Sir, to commend the superior morality of this senti- 
ment, which has at least as much pride as virtue in 
it; but I cannot alter the nature of man. The fact 
is so; these people of the Southern Colonies are 
much more strongly, and with an higher and more 
stubborn spirit, attached to liberty than those to the 
northward. 1 ' 

Mr. Burke discusses his subject under " six capital 
sources — of descent, of form of government, of re- 
ligion in the Northern Provinces, of manners in the 
Southern, of education, of the remoteness of sit- 
uation from the first mover of government " to ac- 
count for this " fierce spirit of liberty ". 

To a student of government and law generally 
there is no part of this speech of Mr. Burke so in- 
teresting and instructive as his comments on the 
education and training of the Colonial lawyer, and 



36 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

here again it is highly proper to let Mr. Burke speak 
for himself : 

" In no country perhaps in the world is the law 
so general a study. The profession itself is nu- 
merous and powerful; and in most provinces it 
takes the lead. The greater number of the deputies 
sent to the Congress were lawyers. But all who 
read, and most do read, endeavor to obtain some 
smattering in that science. I have been told by an 
eminent bookseller that in no branch of his busi- 
ness, after tracts of popular devotion, were so many 
books as those on the law exported to the Planta- 
tions. The Colonists have now fallen into the w r ay 
of printing them for their own use. I hear that 
they have sold nearly as many of Blackstone's Com- 
mentaries in America as in England. General Gage 
marks out this disposition very particularly in a 
letter on your table. He states that all the people 
in his government are lawyers, or smatterers in 
law; and that in Boston they have been enabled, 
by successful chicane, wholly to evade many parts 
of one of your capital penal institutions. . . . 

" This study renders men acute, inquisitive, dex- 
terous, prompt in attack, ready in defense, full of 
resources. In other countries, the people more sim- 
ple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill 
principle in government only by an actual griev- 
ance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the 
pressure of the grievance by the badness of the prin- 
ciple. They augur misgovernment at a distance, 
and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted 
breeze." 

Maitland estimates that nearly twenty-five hun- 
dred copies of Blackstone's Commentaries were ab- 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 37 

sorbed by the Colonies before they declared their 
independence, among the first subscribers being 
John Adams and John Marshall; and he attributes 
the fact that the common law of England became 
the basis of our laws to the circumstance that James 
Kent and John Marshall made Blackstone's Com- 
mentaries their chief authority on the laws of 
England. 

From these facts it should not be hastily con- 
cluded that the Colonies adopted Blackstone's theory 
of government, because they did not. It was due 
to Mr. Jefferson and a few of the choice spirits of 
that period that the robust and virile opinions of 
Coke, Milton, Pitt, Burke, and other great English- 
men were adopted and that the safeguards of Eng- 
lish liberty as set forth in the great charters, and 
especially Magna Charta, Petition of Right, Habeas 
Corpus Act, Bill of Rights, and Act of Settlement, 
were followed. 

The boast of Mr. Jefferson throughout his entire 
life was that he and his immediate friends were dis- 
ciples of Coke, and not Blackstone. Mr. Jefferson 
often refers to the fact that in New England there 
were no " common lawyers " — those grounded in 
the common law of England — and he attributed the 
lack of trust in the rule of the common people to 
this deficiency. 

The divergence of opinion which arose long after 
the Declaration of Independence was adopted be- 
tween Mr. Jefferson and John Adams, Hamilton, 



38 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

and other Federalists, grew out of this one thing, 
and it required the masterly pens of James Kent 
and John Marshall to, in a measure, check the strong 
tendency to popular liberty which might later have 
been engrafted upon our government as a result 
of the French Revolution. The truth of the matter 
is that while all parties in the United States, as well 
as the courts from the lowest to the highest, have 
recognized the central truth that our government 
rests upon the " consent of the governed " or the 
people, their practices have not always been con- 
sistent. Yet at every step in the growth and de- 
velopment of the States, the tendency and practice 
has been, when changes were made in the funda- 
mental law, to throw off, as far as prudence would 
dictate, all restraints upon the people. 

None of our parties have been entirely consistent, 
and few, if any, of our leading statesmen have ad- 
hered at all times to the ideals embodied in the 
Declaration of Independence. 

The most significant fact illustrating this will be 
found in the Constitution of the United States and 
the circumstances attending the Convention that 
adopted it. Mr. Jefferson was in France in 1787, 
while the Convention was in session, but he was 
kept advised in a measure as to what was being 
done, by his most intimate friend and neighbor, 
James Madison, who was a leading member. The 
Convention was held behind closed doors, and the 
Journal of its proceedings was delivered to George 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 39 

Washington, its presiding officer, with the under- 
standing that it should be kept subject to the order 
of Congress. 

The members agreed among themselves that the 
profoundest secrecy should be maintained as to the 
speeches or opinions expressed by all the members, 
so that they could not be used thereafter to their 
prejudice. Mr. Madison kept his notes of the pro- 
ceedings of the Convention also under this same 
pledge of secrecy. It was not until 1818 that the 
Journal of the Convention was published, and it 
was as late as 1841 when Mr. Madison's papers 
were published. If any evidence were needed to 
show that the colonists understood the inestimable 
value of the safeguards of their liberty, it is shown 
in the vigorous and persistent demand that was 
made for a bill of rights by a powerful minority in 
many of the States. This was especially true as to 
Virginia and Massachusetts, where some of the 
strongest men, including many of the patriots who 
had been most active in bringing about the separa- 
tion from Great Britain, such as Patrick Henry, 
the Lees, Hancock, vigorously opposed the Consti- 
tution. It is exceedingly doubtful whether the Con- 
stitution would have been adopted had not a tacit 
agreement been made that certain amendments 
would be added in the form of a bill of rights. 
The faith of the people in the character and judg- 
ment of Washington and the writings of Madison, 
Hamilton, and Jay afterwards compiled and pub- 



40 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

lished in " The Federalist " were the controlling 
factors in the contest. 

Mr. Jefferson was strongly in favor of a bill of 
rights, but advised the adoption of the Constitution 
as framed and was willing to trust to the good sense 
of the people to make such amendments as time and 
experience might prove were necessary and ad- 
visable. Later Mr. Madison drafted the first ten 
amendments to the Constitution, and it is needless 
to say that Mr. Jefferson was consulted in this 
undertaking. The amendments constitute a bill of 
rights after the same general plan as that of 
Virginia with such changes as were necessary to fit 
into the new government. 

In this connection, it is pertinent to remark the 
foresight and unprecedented zeal exhibited by Mr. 
Jefferson for the cause of liberty when he presented 
in his original draft of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence a count indicting George III for forcing 
slavery on the Colonies. This was unfortunately 
struck out by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin 
for reasons stated by Mr. Jefferson in his Auto- 
biography in these words : 

" The clause too, reprobating the enslaving the 
inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in compliance 
to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never at- 
tempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and 
who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it. 
Our Northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little 
tender under those censures ; for though their people 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 41 

had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been 
pretty considerable carriers of them to others." 

Mr. Jefferson was a student at William and Mary 
College from 1760 to 1762, and a student of law 
under George Wythe at Williamsburg from 1762 
to 1767. He heard the matchless speech of Patrick 
Henry in the House of Burgesses in 1765, when he 
denounced George III as a tyrant. 

Mr. Jefferson's mottoes, which he consistently 
followed throughout his life, were the result of this 
early atmosphere and association with such char- 
acters as Patrick Henry, the Lees, Wythe, and 
others, viz. : " Abeo libertas aquo spiritus ; " " Re- 
sistance to tyrants is obedience to God;" "For I 
have sworn, upon the altar of God, eternal hostility 
against every form of tyranny over the mind of 
men; " and the motto of the University of Virginia 
— " Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall 
make you free." 

When in 1769 Mr. Jefferson was elected a mem- 
ber of the House of Burgesses for Albemarle 
County, the first act introduced by him of any con- 
sequence was for permitting the emancipation of 
slaves, which was promptly rejected. 

The severest language used by Mr. Jefferson in 
his original draft of the Declaration, which was 
struck out by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, 
is in part as follows : 

" He has waged cruel war against human nature 
itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and 



42 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

liberty in the persons of a distant people who never 
offended him, captivating and carrying them into 
slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable 
death in their transportation thither. This piratical 
warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the 
warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. 
Determined to keep open a market where men 
should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his 
negative for suppressing every legislative attempt 
to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce." 

This question was again brought up for con- 
sideration before a committee for the revision of 
the laws of the Colony of Virginia to make them in 
keeping with the new Constitution and Bill of 
Rights, of which Mr. Jefferson was chairman, and 
it was considered in the committee and a plan 
agreed upon by the committee for the emancipation 
of slaves after a certain future date with provisions 
for deportation after a certain age; but it was found 
that nothing could be accomplished. In recording 
this incident in his Autobiography, Mr. Jefferson 
used these prophetic words : 

" But it was found that the public mind would 
not yet bear the proposition, nor will it bear it even 
at this date. Yet the day is not distant when it 
must bear and adopt it, or worse will follow. 
Nothing is more certainly written in the book of 
fate, than that these people are to be free ; nor is it 
less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot 
live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion 
have drawn indelible lines of distinction between 
them. It is still in our power to direct the process 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 43 

of emancipation and deportation, peaceably, and in 
such slow degree, as that the evil will wear off in- 
sensibly, and their place be, pari passu, filled up by 
free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left 
to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the 
prospect held up." 

In his proposed draft for a constitution for 
Virginia in 1776, these two provisions were in- 
serted : 

11 No person hereafter coming into this country 
shall be held within the same in slavery under any 
pretext whatsoever. ,, " The General Assembly shall 
not have power to ... permit_the introduction 
of any more slaves to reside in this State, or the 
continuance of slavery beyond the generation which 
shall be living on the 31st day of December 1800; 
all persons born after that date being hereby de- 
clared free." 

In his draft of a bill in 1784 for the government 
of the proposed Western Territory, which embraced 
all of the Northwestern Territory, and also what 
afterwards became Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, 
and Kentucky, Mr. Jefferson had the following : 

" After the year 1800 of the Christian era, there 
shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude 
in any of the said States otherwise than in punish- 
ment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been 
duly convicted to have been personally guilty." 

This clause failed of passage by the vote of a 
single individual. Mr. Jefferson's comment on this 
incident is characteristic. He says: 



44 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

" The voice of a single individual of the State 
which was divided, or one of those which were of 
the negative, would have prevented this abominable 
crime from spreading itself over the new country. 
Thus we see the fate of millions unborn hanging 
on the tongue of one man, and heaven was silent 
in that awful moment ! But it is to be hoped it will 
not always be silent and that the friends of the 
rights of human nature will in the end prevail." 



In his " Notes on Virginia," Mr. Jefferson ex- 
pressed his views fully on the subject of slavery in 
language as strong as, if not stronger than, any 
thus quoted, and in his subsequent writings, both 
public and private, speaking of slavery, he used such 
terms as " abomination ", " sacred side ", " this 
enormity", and went so far as to write Mr. E. 
Rutledge : " This abomination must have an end, 
and there is a superior bench reserved in heaven 
for those who hasten it." 

This apparent digression on the subject of slavery 
has not been made without a reason, and that is to 
most thoroughly impress upon the reader the deep, 
consistent, and undying dedication and consecration 
of Mr. Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of 
Independence, to the cause of liberty. If time and 
space permitted, abundant evidence could be ad- 
duced to show that the same " fierce spirit of 
liberty " existed among the leaders in all the 
Colonies, and especially in New England, where for 
generations the purest forms of democracy had ex- 




DRAFTING THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

Franklin. Jefferson, Adams, Livingston. Sherman. 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 45 

isted in local self-governments in the typical town- 
ship of New England. 

This is especially true as to John Adams, whom 
Mr. Jefferson described as M the Colossus of that 
Congress, the great pillar of support to the Declara- 
tion of Independence and its boldest advocate and 
champion on the floor of the House ". 

Without making invidious distinctions between 
the immortal band of patriots who pledged each 
other their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor in sup- 
port of the Declaration, it is only proper to say that 
Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin are the greatest 
celebrities. Their names are indissolubly connected 
with it, as the writer, orator, and philosopher, by all 
mankind. Each of them was signally honored by 
the American people and each has left a record for 
achievements for the benefit of mankind unparal- 
leled in history. The temporary estrangement be- 
tween Jefferson and Adams caused by their too 
zealous and indiscreet friends, was happily healed 
many years before their death, and the warm 
friendship which grew up between them while mem- 
bers of the Continental Congress w r as fortunately 
restored, as is shown by their incomparable cor- 
respondence. The happy coincidence of the deaths 
of Jefferson and Adams on July 4, 1826, when 
the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration was being 
celebrated, added a double apotheosis to these grand 
old patriots without a parallel. Their last verbal 
and written utterances were about liberty and inde- 



46 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

pendence, and the prayer of each that he might sur- 
vive until Independence Day was graciously vouch- 
safed. Nothing could be added to the joint tributes 
paid to these heroes by William Wirt and Daniel 
Webster, the two greatest orators of those times, 
and each a personal friend and warm admirer of the 
life and teachings of these immortal sons of Vir- 
ginia and Massachusetts. 

May we not say that Mr. Jefferson was correct 
when, in 1819, he described this great charter as 
" The Declaration of Independence, the Declara- 
tory Charter of our Rights and the Rights of 
Man"? 

May we not also conclude with Henry Cabot 
Lodge in speaking of the adoption of the Declara- 
tion: 

" From that day to this it has been listened to 
with reverence by a people who have grown to be 
a great nation and equally from that day to this it 
has been the subject of severe criticism. The rever- 
ence is right, the criticism misplaced and founded 
on misunderstanding/' 

On the 4th day of July, 1918, at a celebration in 
London by the English people, Winston Churchill 
said in part : 

" The Declaration of Independence is not only 
an American document, it follows on Magna Charta 
and the Petition of Right, as the third of the great 
title-deeds on which the liberties of the English- 
speaking race are founded. By it we lost an Em- 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 47 

pire, but by it we preserved an Empire. . . . The 
political conceptions embodied in the Declaration 
of Independence are the same as those which were 
consistently expressed at the time by Lord Chatham 
and Mr. Burke, and by many others who had in 
turn received them from John Hampden and Alger- 
non Sidney." 



CHAPTER II 

THOMAS JEFFERSON AS THE BUILDER OF A STATE 

Having shown in the first chapter that the Dec- 
laration of Independence is the charter of our liber- 
ties, and that it rests upon the solid foundation of 
Anglo-Saxon principles of government and not 
upon mere glittering generalities, and shown in a 
general way the intentions of its framers, it is highly 
proper that something should be said more in de- 
tail about its author — Thomas Jefferson. No effort 
will be made to convey more than the merest out- 
lines of the life and character of Mr. Jefferson in 
this one particular. In order, however, fully to 
appreciate the services to his country and mankind 
in drafting the Declaration of Independence, and 
the constructive work performed by him in State 
and national affairs, it is highly important that a 
brief statement should be made of the outstanding 
facts in his early life and environment. 

No attempt will be made to eulogize Mr. Jeffer- 
son or to portray his life other than as a man 
thoroughly devoted to the cause of liberty and hav- 
ing the sagacity to do the practical thing, and his 
refusal to rest upon his laurels already so worthily 
won while yet a young man. 

48 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 49 

The full measure of Mr. Jefferson as a man, 
scholar, patriot, statesman, and world character, can 
only be taken after one has devoted years of study 
to his life, and read the complete record left by him 
of it in his Autogiography, the Anas and other 
inestimable productions of his pen, including all of 
his state papers and messages as President; and 
especially all of his private correspondence which 
shows his views on all questions public and private. 
These alone furnish the true measure of the man. 

Mr. Jefferson kept a copy of all letters written by 
him. His correspondence was most extensive and 
varied and it furnishes a complete record of his 
opinions on all matters pertaining to government 
and politics during his life. In these letters he 
poured out his heart to his friends and rarely ever 
failed to inculcate the fundamental principles of 
republican government, which he unfalteringly pro- 
claimed and maintained with ability and eloquence. 

The noblest and most perfect monument ever 
erected to the memory of any man will be found in 
the latest, most complete, and best edition of the 
writings of Thomas Jefferson by the Thomas Jef- 
ferson Memorial Association of the United States 
in 1903. The general introduction was written by 
the late U. S. Senator George F. Hoar, of Massa- 
chusetts, and a preface to each of the remaining 
nineteen volumes, devoted in each instance to some 
one characteristic quality of his mind, or the fruits 
thereof, by men of distinction, as follows: 



So SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

" The University of Virginia, and Thomas Jef- 
ferson, Its Father," by James C. Carter ; " The 
Louisiana Purchase," by Charles Emory Smith; 
"General Education," by Charles Needham; "Jef- 
ferson as a Citizen of the Commonwealth of Vir- 
ginia," by Andrew J. Montague; " Jefferson as a 
Tactician," by G. W. Atkinson ; " Jefferson's Serv- 
ices to Civilization during the Founding of the 
Republic," by B. O. Flower; " Religious Freedom," 
by W. J. Bryan ; " Jefferson and the Constitution," 
by C. A. Culberson; "Jefferson's Faith in the 
People," by Alton B. Parker; "Jefferson's Versa- 
tility," by Champ Clark ; " Jefferson's Passport to 
Immortality," by George C. Vest ; " Jefferson as a 
Geographer," by A. W. Greely ; " The Memory of 
Thomas Jefferson," by John B. Stanchfield; "Jef- 
ferson in His Family," by T. Jefferson Coolidge; 
"Jefferson and the Land Question," by Henry 
George; "Jefferson's Religion," by Edward N. 
Calisch ; " Jefferson's Contribution to a Free Press," 
by Josephus Daniels ; " Jefferson as a Man of 
Science," by Cyrus Adler ; and " Jefferson's Quest 
of Knowledge," by Charles W. Kent. 

The most casual examination of the external facts 
surrounding the life and character of Mr. Jeffer- 
son, and his vast influence in helping to mold the 
government of our great Republic, and in a large 
measure fix its destiny for all time, cannot be easily 
traced unless we take into consideration that he was 
a great scholar and had a bold and fearless intellect, 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 51 

as well as moral courage of the highest order. The 
question to determine, then, is what was the ruling 
passion of this man, from whence did he get his 
ideas, and what did he accomplish in a concrete way 
as a statesman? 

Thomas Jefferson was born on a farm called 
Shadwell, now Monticello, near Charlottesville, 
Albemarle County, Virginia, on April 13, 1743. 
His father, Peter Jefferson, was a Welshman, a 
surveyor and planter of substantial character, and 
his mother was Jane Randolph, a member of one 
of the most aristocratic families in the Virginia 
Colony, whose pedigree, it is said, could be traced 
to royalty. Thus in parentage he was half demo- 
cratic and half aristocratic, and was by birth en- 
titled to a social position equal to the highest and 
best. In disposition he was naturally a student, 
having early developed a taste and love for letters ; 
and being permitted to indulge it, he soon became a 
brilliant and versatile scholar. He completed in 
1762 his literary education at the College of Wil- 
liam and Mary at Williamsburg, the capital of the 
Colony of Virginia. 

That same year he became a student of law with 
George Wythe at the same place and pursued his 
studies under his direction until some time in 1767, 
when he was admitted to the Bar. It is needless 
to say that Mr. Jefferson acquired a thorough 
knowledge of the English and Roman gystems of 
laws and jurisprudence and international law, and 



52 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

otherwise laid a broad foundation which led to his 
wide knowledge of history, politics, and general 
culture of the best then in the Colonies, which he 
cultivated so assiduously throughout his life and 
that it resulted in his becoming one of the greatest 
scholars of his generation. 

His career was largely influenced by Dr. Small 
and Mr. Wythe, and he expressed his lasting obliga- 
tions to them in his Autobiography as follows : 

" It was my great good fortune, and what prob- 
ably fixed the destinies of my life, that Dr. William 
Small, of Scotland, w T as then Professor of Mathe- 
matics, a man profound in most of the useful 
branches of science, with a happy talent of com- 
munication, correct and gentlemanly manners, and 
an enlarged and liberal mind. He, most happily for 
me, became soon attached to me, and made me 
his daily companion when not engaged in the school ; 
and from his conversation I got my first views of 
the expansion of science, and of the system of 
things in which we are placed. Fortunately, the 
philosophical chair became vacant soon after my 
arrival at college, and he was appointed to fill it, 
per interim; and he was the first who ever gave, 
in that college, regular lectures in Ethics, Rhetoric, 
and Belles Lettres. He returned to Europe in 1762, 
having previously filled up the measure of his good- 
ness to me, by procuring for me, from his most 
intimate friend, George Wythe, a reception as a 
student of law, under his direction, and introduced 
me to the acquaintance and familiar table of Gov- 
ernor Fauquier, the ablest man who had ever filled 
that office. With him, and at his table, Dr. Small 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 53 

and "Mr. Wythe, his amici omnium hararum. and 
myself formed a partie quarree, and to the habitual 
conversations on these occasions I owed much in- 
struction. Mr. Wythe continued to be my faithful 
and beloved mentor in youth, and my most affec- 
tionate friend through life. In 1767, he led me into 
the practice of the law at the bar of the General 
court, at which I continued until the Revolution shut 
up the courts of justice. " 



From notes left by Mr. Jefferson for a biography 
of George Wythe, as well as numerous expressions 
found in his letters about him, it can easily be seen 
that five years of study of law under such a pre- 
ceptor was well calculated to lay the foundation for 
a great lawyer, jurist, and statesman in Mr. Jeffer- 
son. The distinguished part taken by Mr. Wythe 
in Virginia and the Continental Congress, where 
he became a signer of the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, and his subsequent career as the occupant of 
the office of Chancellor of Virginia, in which he 
achieved such great distinction ; as well as the lasting 
impress made by him as a teacher of law at the 
College of William and Mary, are sufficient evi- 
dences of his great abilities. Among other dis- 
tinguished students of law of Mr. Wythe were John 
Marshall, the great Chief Justice, James Monroe, 
and Henry Clay. 

The leading traits of Mr. Wythe's character, as 
portrayed by Mr. Jefferson, were his " superior 
learning, correct elocution, and logical style of 



54 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

reasoning ... in addition to the exalted virtue 
of the man, which was a polar star to guide in all 
matters which may touch that element of his char- 
acter ". 

From the seven years' residence in Williamsburg 
by Mr. Jefferson, from 1760 to 1767, and his ample 
opportunities, while there at the very center of the 
political life of the Colony, to hear discussed all of 
the controversies between Great Britain and the 
Colonies, and thus obtain at first hand all of the 
information upon which to form opinions for him- 
self, it will be seen that his environment was the 
very best. 

In fact, Mr. Jefferson gives the views of Mr. 
Wythe on many vital questions, and some of them 
were incorporated in the " Summary View " here- 
tofore mentioned. 

The abilities of Mr. Jefferson were amply vindi- 
cated, not only by his appointment to important 
positions, and generally to the chairmanship of im- 
portant committees, while a member of the House 
of Burgesses, of which he first became a member 
in 1769, and also as a member of the first Continen- 
tal Congress, in company with such men as Mr. 
Wythe and others much his seniors in point of age 
and length of service. 

It was not only the great zeal that he displayed in 
the cause of liberty, which he had imbibed from the 
matchless eloquence of Patrick Henry, but his 
thorough knowledge of the grounds of the disputes 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 55 

between Great Britain and the Colonies, and his 
mastery of English laws, and the study of govern- 
ment generally, including civil law and interna- 
tional law; but the wonderful ease and facility dis- 
played in using his pen, that won him this early pre- 
eminence. It is needless to argue that it required 
the highest order of literary skill and legal ability 
to produce such documents as the " Summary 
View " and the Declaration of Independence. 

The power to make a clear, orderly, and forceful 
statement of a controverted matter is one of the 
highest evidences of a great intellect. It requires 
not only great knowledge of facts and principles, 
but power to reason and skill to make an orderly 
and logical arrangement and combination of facts 
and principles, in order to succeed. All of this 
presupposes mastery of language and of the sub- 
ject-matter. The most significant facts developed 
thus early in Mr. Jefferson's life were his ability to 
discover simple, elemental truths from the com- 
plicated mass of facts, obscured by volumes of meta- 
physical learning, bigotry, and prejudice; and his 
unusual and extraordinary power to convey such 
truths in plain, elegant, simple language. This fact 
was most potent in the life of Mr. Jefferson, and 
without it he could not have succeeded in competi- 
tion for leadership against great soldiers and 
orators, who were the natural leaders of the people 
in those times. Mr. Jefferson was a most attractive 
man in his conversation, and had a personal mag- 



56 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

netism which enabled him to make and hold his 
friends; and in this way he always had about him 
during his life an able corps of aggressive followers. 
But it was chiefly by his letters that he built up an 
unlimited following, and furnished arguments and 
practical suggestions which proved to be political 
maxims and truths amounting to a gospel to his 
party. This can be easily verified by consulting 
Foley's " Jeffersonian Encyclopedia ", which is a 
most convincing proof of his genius and versatility, 
as well as of his literary talent. John Adams said 
of Mr. Jefferson that he had a cunning pen, but the 
record shows that he was a veritable wizard with 
his pen. But this mastery of language without 
more, and especially without great constructive 
powers as a lawmaker, would not have sufficed. 
The fact has heretofore been mentioned that, while 
a member of the Continental Congress, Mr. Jeffer- 
son had drafted a bill of rights and a constitution 
for Virginia and forwarded them to the Convention. 

Realizing that declarations, bills of rights, and 
paper constitutions would not accomplish all that 
was needed to make Virginia a republican State, 
Mr. Jefferson voluntarily gave up his seat in Con- 
gress and took a seat in the House of Delegates, to 
which he had again been elected, and entered upon 
the most important work of his life, excepting alone 
the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. 

It was as a legislator of Virginia that he did his 
most important constructive work. Mr. Jefferson 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 57 

had while at Philadelphia kept up a correspondence 
with Mr. Wythe and other friends, and urged upon 
them the great importance of framing a constitu- 
tion and a bill of rights in keeping with the princi- 
ples above referred to; and it is apparent that most, 
if not all, of his sentiments were known to Mason 
and others who did most of the work. They paid a 
merited tribute to Mr. Jefiferson in adopting his 
preamble, and probably many other suggestions, 
as before stated. This Convention was truly inde- 
pendent, and before it adjourned unanimously 
adopted a resolution instructing Mr. Jefiferson and 
other Delegates from Virginia to declare the United 
Colonies free and independent States. 

After leaving Philadelphia and before taking his 
seat in October, 1776, in the Legislature of Vir- 
ginia, Mr. Jefiferson was elected by Congress one 
of the Commissioners to France with Dr. Franklin, 
but declined the honor because he felt he could do 
more lasting work at home, and that it could be 
done most effectively while the spirit of liberty was 
at its highest. 

On October nth Mr. Jefiferson presented and 
had enacted a bill, in due course, establishing Courts 
of Justice. This is the initial law on that subject 
and is the same system that was adopted by other 
States generally throughout the Colonies. It 
divided the State into counties and established three 
kinds of courts — County, Superior, and Supreme. 
The jurisdiction of the courts was defined and the 



58 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

original draft provided for jury trials in all cases 
in law and chancery, but this was amended so as 
to make jury trials optional with the parties in 
chancery cases. 

The next day, October 12th, Mr. Jefferson 
brought forward his most celebrated bill for aboli- 
tion of the Law of Entails, then in full force in 
Virginia. This was the cornerstone on which the 
vast landed aristocracy of Virginia rested, and it 
is needless to say that it was bitterly opposed. It 
was only adopted after a severe contest with a most 
powerful opposition controlled by the Speaker of 
the House — Edmund Pendleton. The preamble to 
this bill shows the deep-seated evil, and, as was later 
said by Mr. Jefferson, " by this bill was broken 
up the hereditary and high-handed aristocracy, 
which by accumulating immense masses of prop- 
erty in single lines of family, had divided our 
country into two distinct orders of nobles and 
plebeians ". 

The next bill brought forward by Mr. Jefferson 
was against general assessments for the support 
of the Anglican Church, then the State Church in 
Virginia. This was the severest controversy in 
which Mr. Jefferson was ever engaged and was 
only won after a contest of more than three years. 
This measure, and his celebrated bill for religious 
freedom later adopted, were considered by Mr. 
Jefferson second in importance only to the Declara- 
tion of Independence. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 59 

In keeping with the tenor of his life, and properly 
viewed by him as a reproach to our pretenses as a 
free people, Mr. Jefferson next presented a bill for- 
bidding the further importation of slaves; but this 
was not enacted into a law until 1778. 

The most thorough, systematic, and far-reaching 
work done by Mr. Jefferson as a State legislator was 
as chairman of a commission to revise the entire 
body of the laws of Virginia, appointed under a 
resolution introduced by him on October 24, 1776. 
The other members of this commission were Ed- 
mund Pendleton, George Wythe, George Mason, 
and Thomas Ludwell Lee. After agreeing upon the 
general plan on which the work should be done, 
Mason and Lee, not being lawyers, turned over the 
task to the other members for execution. Mr. Jef- 
ferson was assigned the task of compiling the body 
of the Common Law and the Statutes to 4th James 1. 
This work required over two years' time, and the 
part done by Mr. Jefferson show T s a careful, pains- 
taking, thorough, and systematic effort to simplify 
the laws with a deliberate effort to republicanize 
them, where any changes could be made. 

The most radical changes were proposed in the 
descent of real estate and other vital matters under 
the following heads : 



*& 



1. " The repeal of the Law of Entails, which, 
though separately enacted at the first republican 
session, he incorporated into the Revised Code. 

2. " The abrogation of the right of Primogeni- 



6o SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

ture, and the equal division of inheritances among 
all children, or other representatives in equal de- 
gree. 

3. " The assertion of the right of Expatriation, 
or a republican definition of the rules whereby 
aliens may become citizens, and citizens make them- 
selves aliens. 

4. " The establishment of Religious Freedom 
upon the broadest foundation. 

5. " The emancipation of all Slaves born after 
the passage of the act, and deportation at a proper 
age (not carried into effect). 

6. " The abolition of Capital Punishment in all 
cases, except those of treason and murder; and the 
graduation of punishments to crimes throughout, 
upon the principles of reason and humanity (en- 
acted with amendments). 

7. "The establishment of a systematical plan of 
general Education, reaching all classes of citizens 
and adapted to every grade of capacity (not carried 
into effect )." 

The revised code was not enacted as a whole, as 
was contemplated, but parts of it were passed from 
time to time as public sentiment developed. Mr. 
Jefferson justly ascribed to Mr. Madison's un- 
wearied exertions the final enactment of the great 
bulk of these reforms. 

Mr. Madison's comment on these bills prepared 
by Mr. Jefferson was that they were " A mine of 
legislative wealth and a model of statutory composi- 
tion, containing not a single superflous word and 
preferring always words and phrases of a meaning 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 61 

fixed as much as possible by oracular treatises or 
Solemn adjudications ". 

Mr. Jefferson has left a brief description of the 
vast labor bestowed upon this most important work 
by him and the result thereof in his Autobiography, 
part of which is as follows: 

" Early, therefore, in the session of '76, to 
which I returned, I moved and presented a bill for 
the revision of the laws, which was passed on the 
24th of October; and on the 5th of November, Mr. 
Pendleton, Air. Wythe, George Mason, Thomas L. 
Lee and myself, were appointed a committee to exe- 
cute the work. We agreed to meet at Fredericks- 
burg, to settle the plan of operation, and to distri- 
bute the work. We met there accordingly, on the 
13th of January, 1777. The first question was, 
whether we should propose to abolish the whole 
existing system of laws, and prepare a new and com- 
plete institute, or preserve the general system, and 
only modify it to the present state of things. Mr. 
Pendleton, contrary to his usual disposition in favor 
of ancient things, was for the former proposition, 
in which he was joined by Mr. Lee. To this it was 
objected, that to abrogate our whole system would 
be a bold measure, and probably far beyond the 
view r s of the legislature; that they had been in the 
practice of revising, from time to time, the laws of 
the Colony, omitting the expired, the repealed, and 
the obsolete, amending only those retained, and 
probably meant we should now do the same, only in- 
cluding the British statutes as well as our own; 
that to compose a new institute, like those of Jus- 
tinian and Bracton, or that of Blackstone, which was 
the model proposed by Mr. Pendleton, would be an 



62 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

arduous undertaking, of vast research, of great con- 
sideration and judgement; and when reduced to a 
text, every word of that text, from the imperfection 
of human language, and its incompetence to express 
distinctly every shade of idea, would become a 
subject of question and chicanery, until settled by 
repeated adjudications; and this would involve us 
for ages in litigation, and render property uncertain, 
until, like the statutes of old, every word had been 
tried and settled by numerous decisions, and by new 
volumes of reports and commentaries; and that no 
one of us, probably, would undertake such a work, 
which, to be systematical, must be the work of one 
hand. This last was the opinion of Mr. Wythe, 
Mr. Mason and myself. When we proceeded to the 
distribution of the work, Mr. Mason excused him- 
self, as, being no lawyer, he felt himself unqualified 
for the work, and he resigned soon after. Mr. Lee 
excused himself on the same ground, and died, in- 
deed, in a short time. The other two gentlemen, 
therefore, and myself divided the work among us. 
The common law, and the statutes to the 4th James 
1, were assigned to me; the British statutes, from 
that period to the present day, to Mr. Wythe ; and the 
Virginia laws to Mr. Pendleton. As the law of 
Descents, and the criminal law fell of course within 
my portion, I wished the committee to settle the 
leading principles of these, as a guide for me in 
framing them ; and, with respect to the first, I pro- 
posed to abolish the law of primogeniture, and to 
make real estate descendible in parcenary to the next 
of kin, as personal property is, by the statute of 
distribution. Mr. Pendleton wished to preserve the 
right of primogeniture, but seeing at once that that 
could not prevail, he proposed we should adopt the 
Hebrew principle, and give a double portion to the 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 63 

elder son. I observed, that if the eldest son could 
eat twice as much, or do double work, it might be a 
natural evidence of his right to a double portion; 
but being on a par in his powers and wants, with 
his brothers and sisters, he should be on a par also 
in the partition of the patrimony; and such was the 
decision of the other members. 

" On the subject of the criminal law, all were 
agreed, that the punishment of death should be 
abolished, except for treason and murder; and that, 
for other felonies, should be substituted hard labor 
in the public works, and in some cases, the lex tal- 
ionis. How r this last revolting principle came to 
obtain our approbation, I do not remember. There 
remained, indeed, in our laws, a vestige of it in a 
single case of a slave; it was the English law, in the 
time of the Anglo-Saxons, copied probably from the 
Hebrew r law of 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a 
tooth ', and it was the law of several ancient 
peoples; but the modern mind had left it far in the 
rear of its advances. These points, however, being 
settled, we repaired to our respective homes for the 
preparation of the work. 

" In the execution of my part, I thought it mate- 
rial not to vary the diction of the ancient statutes by 
modernizing it, nor to give rise to new r questions by 
new expressions. The text of these statutes had 
been so fully explained and defined, by numerous 
adjudications, as scarcely ever now to produce a 
question in our courts. I thought it would be useful, 
also, in all new draughts, to reform the style of the 
later British statutes, and of our own acts of As- 
sembly; which from their verbosity, their endless 
tautologies, their involutions of case within case, 
and parenthesis within parenthesis, and their multi- 
plied efforts at certainty, by saids and aforesaids, 



64 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

by ors and by ands, to make them more plain, are 
really rendered more perplexed and incomprehen- 
sible, not only to common readers, but to the lawyers 
themselves. We were employed in this work from 
that time to February, 1779, when we met at Wil- 
liamsburg, that is to say, Mr. Pendleton, Mr. Wythe 
and myself; and meeting day by day, we examined 
critically our several points, sentence by sentence, 
scrutinizing and amending, until we had agreed on 
the whole. We then returned home, had fair copies 
made of our several parts, which were reported to the 
General Assembly, June 18th, 1779, by Mr. Wythe 
and myself, Mr. Pendleton's residence being dis- 
tant, and he having authorized us by letter to de- 
clare his approbation. We had, in this work, 
brought so much of the common law as it was 
thought necessary to alter, all the British statutes 
from Magna Charta to the present day, and all the 
laws of Virginia, from the establishment of our 
legislature, in the 4th Jac. 1. to Fhe present time, 
which we thought should be retained, within the 
compass of one hundred and twenty-six bills, mak- 
ing a printed folio of ninety pages only. Some bills 
were taken out, occasionally, from time to time, and 
passed; but the main body of the work was not en- 
tered on by the legislature until after the general 
peace, in 1785, when, by the unwearied exertions 
of Mr. Madison, in opposition to the endless quib- 
bles, chicaneries, perversions and delays of lawyers 
and demi-lawyers, most of the bills were passed by 
the legislature, with little alteration. 

" The bill for establishing religious freedom, the 
principles of which had, to a certain degree, been 
enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of 
reason and right. It still met with opposition; but 
with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 65 

passed; and a singular proposition proved that its 
protection of opinion was meant to be universal. 
Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a 
departure from the plan of the holy author of our 
religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting 
the word ' Jesus Christ ', so that it should read ' a 
departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy 
author of our religion'; the insertion was rejected 
by a great majority, in proof that they meant to 
comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the 
Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohometan, 
the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination." 

The question of education came under that part 
of the work assigned to Mr. Pendleton, but Mr. 
Jefferson having urged the Committee to propose a 
" systematized plan of general education ", he was 
requested by the Committee to prepare some bills 
on that subject, which he did. He prepared three 
bills covering this subject providing for three dis- 
tinct grades of education, reaching all classes; viz.: 

1. " Elementary schools for all children generally, 
rich and poor alike. 

2. " Colleges for a middle degree of instruction, 
calculated for the common purposes of life and such 
as would be desirable for all who were in easy cir- 
cumstances. 

3. " An ultimate grade for teaching the sciences 
generally, and in their highest degree." 

These bills were not acted on until much later, 
and, unfortunately, did not accomplish the ends de- 
sired because of amendments, and it was not until 



66 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

after Mr. Jefferson had retired from public life 
that he was able to again take up the third and last 
of the great undertakings of his long and useful 
life, when he succeeded in having Virginia establish 
the University of Virginia along educational lines 
of his own choosing. 

From this brief review of the constructive work 
of Mr. Jefferson it will be seen that he was a most 
practical man, and only departed from the past his- 
tory of English laws and institutions when he 
deemed it absolutely necessary to do so in order to 
lay the foundation for republican government and 
destroy what he believed to be great evils. 

In commenting on this work as a whole, Mr. Jef- 
ferson, in his Autobiography, says: 

" I considered four of these bills, passed or re- 
ported, as forming a system by which every fiber 
would be eradicated of ancient or future aristoc- 
racy; and a foundation laid for a government truly 
republican. The repeal of the laws of entail would 
prevent the accumulation and perpetuation of 
wealth, in select families, and preserve the soil of 
the country from being daily more and more ab- 
sorbed in mortmain. The abolition of primogeni- 
ture, and equal partition of inheritances, removed 
the feudal and unnatural distinctions which made 
one member of every family rich, and all the rest 
poor, substituting equal partition, the best of all 
Agrarian laws. The restoration of the rights of 
conscience relieved the people from taxation for the 
support of a religion not theirs; for the establish- 
ment was truly of the religion of the rich, the dis- 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 67 

senting sects being entirely composed of the less 
wealthy people; and these, by the bill for a general 
education, would be qualified to understand their 
rights, to maintain them, and to exercise with intel- 
ligence their parts in self-government; and all this 
would be effected, without the violation of a single 
natural right of any one individual citizen ". 

In order to appreciate the full significance of Mr. 
Jefferson's constructive ability as a statesman, and 
its influence upon this country, and the world at 
large, it is only necessary to let Mr. Jefferson's 
handiwork speak for itself. 

Next to the Declaration of Independence stands 
his statute for religious liberty in Virginia, which 
finally resulted in separating the church and state 
in this country. This will be found as Appendix B. 

Mabel Hill, in " Liberty Documents ", fails to 
include this statute for religious liberty or to give 
credit to Mr. Jefferson for the part he took in 
achieving religious liberty in Virginia. She quotes 
with approval Channing's comments in which he 
says that the earliest enunciation during the Revolu- 
tionary war on that subject was contained in the 
Bill of Rights, which was probably the work of 
Madison and Patrick Henry, as he infers. There is 
no dispute that George Mason drafted the Bill of 
Rights, including Article XVI. It is equally true 
that Mr. Jefferson drafted this act and that it was 
finally enacted as drawn in 1785, under the leader- 
ship of Mr. Madison. It will thus be seen that 



68 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

there is glory enough for all. The concrete result, 
however, necessarily belongs to Mr. Jefferson and 
Mr. Madison, but they were recording the deliberate 
judgment of the people of Virginia on this sub- 
ject. 

This same doctrine was in part set forth in the 
two great documents of the Puritans prepared by 
Ireton and Lambert, respectively, known as the 
Agreement of the People and the Instrument of 
Government in 1649, and 1653, but the war between 
the churches in Virginia did not begin until about 
1760 when the Baptists established their first church 
organization in the Valley of Virginia. 

All of the dissenting churches joined in the attack 
against the Established Church. The civil authori- 
ties began their persecutions against the Baptists. 
John Esten Cooke, in his " History of Virginia," 
relates the incidents connected with this persecution 
as follows: 

"In June, 1768, three preachers of the new 
church, John Waller, Lewis Craig, and James 
Childs, were arrested by the sheriff of Spotsylvania. 
They were offered their liberty if they would prom- 
ise to discontinue preaching; but that had no more 
effect in their case than in the case of John Bunyan. 
They gloried in their martyrdom. As they went to 
prison through the streets of Fredericksburg, they 
raised the resounding hymn, ' Broad is the road 
that leads to death '. Through the windows of the 
jail they preached to great throngs of people. When 
this had gone on for more than a month they were 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 69 

released; they had resolutely resisted in making no 
promises to discontinue their efforts. Their perse- 
cutors were even ashamed. When they were ar- 
raigned for ' preaching the Gospel contrary to law \ 
Patrick Henry, who had ridden fifty miles to wit- 
ness the trial, suddenly rose and exclaimed : * May 
it please you worships, what did I hear read ? Did 
I hear an expression that these men whom your wor- 
ships are about to try for misdemeanor are charged 
with preaching the Gospel of the Son of God ' ? " 

The solemn voice is said to have deeply moved 
all who heard it. The State prosecutor " turned pale 
with agitation ", and the court were near dismissing 
the accused. Elsewhere the persecution went on; 
in Chesterfield, Middlesex, Caroline, and other 
counties. Men were imprisoned for their faith; it 
was a reproduction of the monstrous proceedings in 
the mother country. But the result was what might 
have been foreseen by any but the judicially blind. 
The Baptists only grew stronger. In 1774 the Sepa- 
rates had fifty-four Churches, and the Regulars 
were steadily increasing also. One and all of these 
and other Dissenters were actuated, says one of 
their advocates, by two strong principles — love of 
freedom and "hatred of the Church Establish- 
ment ". They were " resolved never to relax their 
efforts until it was utterly destroyed ", and they 
lived to see the wish fulfilled. 

In this bitter antagonism to the Establishment the 
Methodists had no part; they were " a society within 
the Church ", and advocated only a more evangeli- 



jo SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

cal spirit in worship. But the Quakers and Presby- 
terians co-operated with the Baptist Dissenters and 
were unresting in their hostility to the union of 
church and state. The noble memorial from the 
Presbytery of Hanover, which may yet be seen on 
the yellow old sheet in the Virginia Archives, sums 
up the whole case with admirable eloquence and 
force. It is trenchant and severe, but that w r as nat- 
ural. It is the great protest of Dissent in all the 
years. 

It may as well be added here that the long wrestle 
went on into the Revolution and after its close, and 
nonconformity grew lusty with the rich food fed to 
it. The Act of Religious Freedom did not satisfy 
the nonconformists. They took fire at the very 
terms " Dissenter " and " Toleration ". Why were 
they dissenters from the Episcopal Church any more 
than the Episcopalians were dissenters from them? 
Why were they to be " tolerated " ? The truth is, 
a great legacy of hatred had been bequeathed to the 
new generation who remembered the persecutions to 
which their fathers had been subjected. They were 
relentless in their hostility. An earnest advocate of 
their views in our own day writes : 

" The patriots of Virginia were not content with 
victory half won. They knew that their principles 
were sound and they followed them out to their 
extreme results. While life lingered in any severed 
limb of the Establishment they did not feel safe. 
They renewed their attacks until they had not 
merely hewn down the tree, but had torn it up by 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 71 

the roots, and had destroyed the last germ from 
which it might be reproduced." 

This act for religious freedom was passed in 
1785 while Mr. Jefferson was in France, and a copy 
of it was sent to him. It was the most progressive 
piece of legislation ever enacted by an American 
State and expressed in concrete form the result of 
the most advanced thought on the subject, and it 
provoked the admiration of the most distinguished 
men in Europe. As usual it brought down on the 
head of its author the unremitting hatred and bitter 
opposition of the hierarchy w T hich had for genera- 
tions been the beneficiaries of this abuse of gov- 
ernment. As long as this most salutary principle 
was allowed to remain in declarations of rights, 
and not embodied in legislation, no objection was 
registered against it; but the moment it was at- 
tempted to make it operative the vials of wrath 
were let loose upon the author, and he was de- 
nounced as an enemy to religion and to established 
laws and order. 

Of this statute, Willian Wirt in his " Eulogy on 
Jefferson and Adams" says: 

' The preamble to the bill establishing religious 
freedom in Virginia, is one of the most morally sub- 
lime of human productions. By its great author 
it was always esteemed as one of his happiest efforts 
and the measure itself one of his best services, as 
the short and modest epitaph left by him attests. 
Higher praise cannot and need not be given to it, 



J2 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

than to say, it is in all respects worthy of the pen 
which wrote the Declaration of Independence; that 
it breathes the same lofty and noble spirit, and it is 
a fit companion for that immortal instrument." 

Ex-Governor Montague of Virginia, speaking of 
the bill on the subject of descents and distributions, 
says: 

" He wrote the statute of descents and distribu- 
tions within one page, and hardly eighteen sections, 
thus exhibiting the most luminous condensation 
found in the statutes of the world. Over one hun- 
dred years have passed and only one case of liti- 
gation has arisen for the purpose of construing this 
statute. The statute of frauds and perjuries drawn 
by a great English lawyer, is said to have cost 
one tithe of the entire income of Great Britain for 
a long period of years, yet Jefferson was so clear 
in thought and perspicuous in style that no room for 
litigation followed his labors. Well might the 
makers of statutes for the American Commen- 
wealths adopt him as a model." 

In a letter dated Paris, August 13, 1786, written 
by Mr. Jefferson to Mr. Wythe about the educa- 
tional bill, he said: 

" I think by far the most important bill in our 
whole code, is that for the diffusion of knowledge 
among the people. No other sure foundation can 
be devised for the preservation of freedom and hap- 
piness. If anybody thinks, that kings, nobles, or 
priests are good conservators of the public happiness, 
send him here. It is the best school in the universe 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 73 

to cure him of that folly. He will see here, with his 
own eyes, that these descriptions of men are an aban- 
doned confederacy against the happiness of the mass 
of the people. The omnipotence of their effect can- 
not be better proved, than in this country particu- 
larly, where, notwithstanding the finest soil upon 
earth, the finest climate under heaven, and a people 
of the most benevolent; the most gay and amiable 
character of which the human form is susceptible; 
where such a people, I say, surrounded by so many 
blessings from nature, are loaded with misery by 
kings, nobles, and priests, and by them alone. 
Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance: 
establish and improve the law for educating the com- 
mon people. Let our countrymen know, that the 
people alone can protect as against these evils, and 
that the tax which will be paid for this purpose, 
is not more than the thousandth part of what will 
be paid to kings, priests and nobles, who will rise 
up among us, if we leave the people in ignorance." 

The crowning work of Mr. Jefferson's whole ca- 
reer, the founding of the University of Virginia, was 
the direct result of the plan he had devised in the 
bill for education, and its full development shows the 
highest order of constructive genius. Any one of 
these achievements would be sufficient to demon- 
strate his practical ability, but what shall be said of 
all these and others that might be cited, as a whole? 

The one sovereign remedy used by Mr. Jeffer- 
son consistently as a great practical reformer was 
freedom of thought, as is set forth in the preamble 
to the statute for religious liberty. 



74 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

The keynote to his public life was faith in the 
people to govern themselves, but this did not imply 
that all possible safeguards should not be thrown 
around them, and that government should not have 
an orderly and natural growth. Indeed, in some 
respects Mr. Jefferson was, as stated by John Fiske, 
a most conservative reformer. 

The fundamental difference between our institu- 
tions and those of England is that the people here 
are made the source of all power in the State and 
national constitutions, and that magistrates are their 
trustees and servants, and in England it is theoreti- 
cally in the king. Mr. Jefferson and his co-laborers 
were fortunate in the fact that the colonists had real 
and not imaginary grievances against the king and 
his ministers, and that they could retain the best 
parts of the English system of jurisprudence as the 
foundation of our system of laws. The bills of 
rights of our States are predicated upon the charters 
and laws of England, and the most advanced ideas 
of justice, sound morality and virtue, and this is 
especially true of the Bill of Rights of Virginia. 

It required centuries to demonstrate the truth 
that the state is the creature of the people and be- 
longs to them, and that the people do not exist for 
the purpose of being governed. This difference in 
the conception of a state is fundamental and was 
never fully appreciated until modern times. Louis 
XIV threw off all disguise and said, " I am the 
State." There is a wide gulf between kings and 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 75 

their subjects and a representative republic based on 
the consent of the governed, with citizens having 
equal rights, and who create their own instrument 
of government and elect their own servants to con- 
trol their affairs. In the one all power comes from 
the king, who is above the people; in the other all 
power comes from the people, and the magistrate is. 
a servant. 

The colonists had exercised these fundamental 
rights for generations and were not mere theorists; 
and their attachment to the English Government was 
therefore deep-rooted. They reluctantly withdrew 
from the mother country, and held with the utmost 
tenacity to the best parts of the English laws and 
institutions. 

The importance of our State governments, for 
these and other reasons, cannot be overestimated. 
The theory of our State governments is based upon 
the original Anglo-Saxon idea that the people are 
the source of all power, and that magistrates are 
their servants and not their masters, which is the 
antithesis of autocracy, the divine rights of kings, 
and all forms of government based on force. Mr. 
Jefferson and his associates did not, therefore, run 
after wild theories and visionary philosophers in 
framing our States; but clung to the old landmarks, 
and only made changes where it was necessary to do 
so to rid themselves of abuses. However, they 
were progressive to a degree far beyond any law- 
makers of their times and adopted ideas of justice, 



76 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

moderation, tolerance, and virtue in consonance with 
the teachings of the New Testament, which has 
placed our government upon the highest plane pos- 
sible, and thereby entitled us to the admiration of 
all right-thinking men in all nations. Mr. Freeman 
has called attention to the fact that English law- 
makers, in attempting reforms of their laws, have 
often found it advisable to search for precedents 
in the early history of the nation instead of try- 
ing experiments along wholly novel theories. 

The Virginia Bill of Rights declares that no free 
government can be preserved but by a firm adherence 
to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and 
virtue, and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental 
principles. 

It is doubtful whether a better statement has 
ever been made of the fundamental principles of our 
government than is found in this bill of rights 
drawn by George Mason, who was not a lawyer, 
but had a broad and liberal education and was a 
man of extraordinary ability. The reader is re- 
quested to read over and study carefully this great 
document of liberty, which is made Appendix C. 

It is an orderly and logical statement of the great 
truths which had become maxims of government, as 
the result of experience in Great Britain, and the 
American colonies to a limited extent, from cen- 
turies of self-government, and embodies the opinions 
of the best writers and statesmen at that time. 
An epitome, with a brief discussion of these funda- 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 77 

mental principles, will be helpful, at least to laymen. 
It will be observed that there are sixteen articles 
and that they are set forth as rights belonging to 
the good people of Virginia and their posterity, as 
the basis and foundation of government, as follows : 

1. This is practically the same as the Declaration 
of Independence and asserts that all men are by 
nature equally free and independent, and are before 
entering into a state of society entitled to the enjoy- 
ment of life and liberty, with the means of acquir- 
ing and possessing property and pursuing and ob- 
taining happiness and safety, and that they cannot 
by any compact deprive or divest their posterity 
of said rights. 

The two fundamental principles here stated per- 
tain to persons and property, and, as Mr. Jefferson 
has tersely said, u Persons and property make the 
sum of the objects of government." 

It should also be observed here that all of these 
safeguards of liberty concern the person in his 
various relations, and property in its acquisition, 
ownership, and disposition. 

2. This enunciates also the same great truths set 
out in the Declaration and in the " Summary 
View " and is so admirably stated that it would be 
almost criminal to change it; viz., " That all power 
is vested in, and consequently derived from the 
people; that magistrates are their trustees and ser- 
vants, and at all times amenable to them." 

3. This is also the same as appears in the Declara- 



78 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

tion and also in the English Bill of Rights and Act 
of Settlement, viz., " That government exists for the 
common benefit and protection and security of the 
people; that that form of government is best, which 
is capable of producing the greatest degree of hap- 
piness and safety, and that when a government shall 
be found inadequate a majority has the right to re- 
form, alter or abolish it in such manner as shall be 
judged most conducive to the public weal." 

4. This provides that no one is entitled to ex- 
clusive emoluments or privileges from the commu- 
nity but in consideration of public service, and that 
the offices of magistrates, legislators, and judges 
should not be hereditary. 

5. This is the first written recognition of the 
separation of legislative, executive, and judicial 
powers practiced in part in England for centuries, 
and first fully enlarged upon by Baron Montesquieu 
in " The Spirit of Laws ". It also demands rotation 
in public offices, regardless of the department, by 
frequent, certain, and regular elections. 

6. This declares that all elections ought to be free 
and that suffrage should be granted to all men hav- 
ing sufficient evidence of permanent interest with 
and attachment to the community; that no person 
should be taxed or deprived of his property for 
public uses without his consent or that of his repre- 
sentative so elected, and should not be bound by any 
law to which he has not in like manner assented. 

This is an elaboration of Article 6 of Confirmatio 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 79 

Chartarum of Edward I (1297) and contains the 
essence of " no taxation without representation ". 

7. This prohibits the suspension of laws or the 
execution thereof by any authority, without the con- 
sent of the representatives of the people, as provided 
in Article I, Bill of Rights (1689). 

8. This contains guarantees of personal liberty 
as set forth in Articles 39 and 40 of Magna Charta 
(1215), Habeas Corpus Act (1679), and Trial by 
Jury, an established institution of England, in sub- 
stance as follows : The right in all criminal prosecu- 
tions to demand the cause and nature of his ac- 
cusation, to be confronted with the accusers and wit- 
nesses, to call for evidence in his favor and to a 
speedy trial by an impartial jury of twelve men of 
hib vicinage, without whose unanimous consent he 
cannot be found guilty; nor can be compelled to give 
evidence against himself, and that no man shall be 
deprived of his liberty except by the law of the land 
or the judgment of his peers. 

9. This also touches the liberty of the person, 
and is covered in part by Article 10 of the Bill of 
Rights (1689), as follows: " That excessive bail 
ought not to be required, nor excessive fines im- 
posed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." 

10. This is a prohibition against general warrants, 
as held by Lord Camden in 1763 (19 State Trials, 
1067) and Lord Mansfield in 1764 (19 State Trials, 
1026-1027), whereby an officer or messenger may 
be commanded to search suspected places without 



80 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

evidence of an offense committed or to seize a per- 
son not named or offense described and supported 
by evidence. 

ii. This provides for jury trials in civil suits re- 
specting property, in accordance with the laws of 
England and the Colonies at that time in these 
words : " That in controversies respecting property 
and in suits between man and man, the ancient trial 
by Jury of twelve men is preferable to any other 
and ought to be held sacred." 

12. This provides for the freedom of the press 
in general terms, as follows : " That the freedom 
of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, 
and can never be restrained but by despotic 
governments." 

This antedates the celebrated Fox libel Act 
(1792). John Milton's " Areopagitica ; or, A speech 
for the liberty of unlicensed printing," is the greatest 
document ever penned on this subject; and, as has 
been aptly said, " It is one of the immortal glories 
of English literature." A few only of the most 
striking sentences are here quoted, to-wit : 

" Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, 
God's image; but he w r ho destroys a good book, 
kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, 
in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the 
earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of 
a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on pur- 
pose to a life beyond life." " We should be wary, 
therefore, what persecution we raise against the 
living labors of public men, how we spill that sea- 




JOHN MILT' >\" 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 81 

soned life of man, preserved and stored up in 
books." " Truth and understanding are not such 
wares as to be monopolized and traded in by tickets 
and statutes and standards." " Well knows he who 
uses to consider, that our faith and knowledge 
thrives by exercise as well as our limbs and com- 
plexion." " Where there is much desire to learn, 
there of necessity will be much arguing, much 
writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is 
but knowledge in the making." " If it be desired to 
know the immediate cause of all this free writing 
and free speaking, there cannot be assigned a truer 
than your own mild and free and humane govern- 
ment; it is the liberty, lords and commons, which 
your own valours and happy counsels have pur- 
chased us; liberty which is the nurse of all great 
>vits ; this is that which hath rarefied and enlightened 
our spirits like the influence of heaven; this is that 
which hath enfranchised, enlarged and lifted up our 
apprehensions degrees above themselves. You can- 
not make us now less capable, less knowing, less 
eagerly pursuing of truth, unless ye first make 
yourselves that made us so, less the lovers, less the 
founders of our true liberty." " Give me the liberty 
to know, to utter and to argue freely according to 
conscience, above all liberties." " For who knows 
not that truth is strong, next to the Almighty; she 
needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensing to 
make her victorious; those are the shifts and the 
defences that error uses against her power; give 
her but room and do not bind her when she sleeps, 
for then she speaks not true as the old Proteus did 
who spoke oracles only when he was caught and 
bound." 

11 For when God shakes a kingdom with strong 
and healthful commotions to a general reforming it 



82 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

is not untrue that many sectaries and false teachers 
are then busiest in seducing. But yet more true 
it is that God then raises to his own work men of 
rare abilities and more than common industry not 
only to look back and revive what hath been taught 
heretofore, but to gain further and to go on some 
new enlightened steps in the discovery of truth/' 

" Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant 
nation raising herself like a strong man after sleep 
and shaking her invincible locks ; methinks I see her 
as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling 
her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam; purg- 
ing and unsealing her long abused sight at the foun- 
tain itself of heavenly radiance; while the whole 
noise of timorous and flocking birds with those also 
that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what 
she means, and in their envious gabble would prog- 
nosticate a year of sects and schisms. " 

Macaulay in his magnificent essay on Milton 
calls the Areopagitica " that sublime treatise which 
every statesman should wear as a sign upon his 
hands, and as frontlets between his eyes." Macau- 
lay further says : " It is to be regretted that the 
prose writings of Milton should in our time be so 
little read. As compositions, they deserve the at- 
tention of every man who wishes to become ac- 
quainted with the full power of the English lan- 
guage. They abound with passages compared with 
which the finest declamations of Burke sink into 
insignificance. They are a perfect field of cloth of 
gold." 

13. This approves a well-regulated militia of the 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 83 

body of the people, trained to arms, disapproves of 
a standing army in times of peace as dangerous to 
liberty, and makes the military in all cases subordi- 
nate to the civil power. 

14. This shows a strong leaning to local self- 
government and opposition to foreign control in 
these words: " That the people have a right to uni- 
form government; and therefore, that no govern- 
ment separate from or independent of the govern- 
ment of Virginia ought to be erected or established 
within the limits thereof." The same prejudice 
against foreign dictation existed to a marked degree 
in all the Colonies, and led the framers of the 
Articles of Confederation to designate it "a firm 
league of friendship/' 

15. This is worthy of being printed in letters of 
gold and hung on the walls of every legislative hall 
in the universe, and is in fact the golden text of 
this great instrument. It is therefore copied in full : 
" That no free government or the blessing of liberty, 
can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adher- 
ence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality 
and virtue, and by a frequent recurrence to funda*- 
mental principles." 

It cannot be disputed that the laws of England 
and America are laid deep in the moral law, and this 
is especially true in regard to the web and woof of 
it, which has had a gradual evolution and growth, as 
is demonstrated by the customs and usages and 
judge-made law. As has been aptly and truly stated 



84 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

by Judge Holmes in his great work on " The Com- 
mon Law " : 

" The life of the law has not been logic ; it has 
been experience. The felt necessities of the time, the 
prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of 
public policy, avowed or unconscious, even the pre- 
judices which judges share with their fellow men, 
have had a good deal more to do than syllogism in 
determining the rules by which men should be gov- 
erned. The law embodies the story of a nation's 
development through many centuries, and it cannot 
be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and 
corollaries of a book of mathematics. In order to 
know what it is, we must know what it has been, 
and what it tends to become." 

Truth, justice, righteousness, as well as conven- 
ience, have generally speaking been the controlling 
factors. This element of moral substratum in the 
English people, as pointed out by Taine in his " His- 
tory of English Literature ", is one of our most 
precious inheritances. The attitude of our greatest 
and best judges in deciding lawsuits is fittingly and 
briefly stated by Chancellor Kent in a letter written 
to Thomas Washington, a lawyer of Nashville, Ten- 
nessee, in 1828, as follows: 

" My practice was first to make myself perfectly 
and accurately [mathematically accurately] master 
of the facts. It was done by abridging the bill and 
then the answers and then the depositions, and by 
the time I had done this slow, tedious process I 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 85 

was master of the cause and ready to decide it. / 
sazv where Justice lay and the moral sense decided 
the cause half the time, and I then sat down to 
search the authorities until I had exhausted my 
books. I might once in a while be embarrassed by 
a technical rule, but I most always found principles 
suited to my views of the case; and my object was 
to discuss a point so as never to be teazed with it 
again, and to anticipate an angry and vexatious 
appeal to a popular tribune by disappointed coun- 
sel." 

16. This declares in favor of freedom of religious 
faith as a governmental proposition, and is in har- 
mony with Mr. Jefferson's famous statute for Re- 
ligious Liberty, heretofore discussed, and was in 
fact the initial declaration upon this most vital ques- 
tion, as follows: " That religion, as the duty which 
we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharg- 
ing it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, 
not force or violence; and therefore all men are 
equally entitled to the free exercise of religion ac- 
cording to the dictates of conscience; and that it 
is the duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, 
love and charity to each other." 

The recognition and enforcement of this provi- 
sion has done more to emancipate the mind of man 
and prevent wars than any other of these fundamen- 
tal principles. This is one of the greatest contribu- 
tions made by the American people to the happiness 
of the race. 

Viewing this great document as a whole, it evinces 



86 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

a grasp of the elementary doctrines of government 
which is truly wonderful, and entitles George Mason 
to a niche in the Temple of Fame along with Wash- 
ington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Franklin, 
Hamilton, and others whose names are household 
words in this country. 

The experience of 142 years in the United States 
has fully vindicated the soundness of every single 
one of these articles in the Bill of Rights, and hence 
we are justified in stating that the foundation is 
sound and good, and the superstructure should be 
also good provided we make laws worthy to rest 
upon such a splendid foundation. 

No government on earth is perfect. Abuses will 
naturally and inevitably creep into all forms of gov- 
ernment. Our form of government is best adapted 
to reform these abuses, but all reforms should be 
largely constructive and not destructive. In other 
words, when an abuse is discovered is it not the 
part of wisdom to consider what the abuse is and 
how far it can be remedied under our present form 
of government by statute or decision of court, and 
if neither affords the desired relief then amend the 
Constitution rather than destroy the entire govern- 
ment and trust to mere theorists to give us a new 
one at the end of a revolution? There are only two 
great systems of jurisprudence in the world today — 
the English and American System and the Roman 
System. One is based on individualism and the 
representative idea grounded on public education 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 87 

and public opinion, and is today the most progressive 
and is the embodiment of liberty; and the other, 
while it is most admirable in many respects, and 
was for generations far in advance of the Common 
Law, is devoid of the necessary principles to guar- 
antee the freedom of the individual, representative 
government, and all the blessings connected with and 
growing out of a government of the people, by the 
people, and for the people. This policy does not by 
any means deprive any one or more of the right 
to advocate changes in the form of our State and 
national governments, constitutional or statutory, as 
the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of 
Rights expressly confer this privilege. But it re- 
quires that the established order shall continue until 
the necessary majority is obtained, in an orderly 
way, to accomplish the change. Can any plan of 
government be fairer or more just in its require- 
ments? This is the plan that w r as adopted by Mr. 
Jefferson, Mason, and the other framers of our Con- 
stitution, bills of rights, and statutes placing our 
governments, State and national, on republican 
principles. 

Washington's Farewell Address contains the fol- 
lowing wholesome advice on this subject: 

" This government, the offspring of our own 
choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full 
investigation and mature deliberation, completely 
free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, 
uniting security with energy, and containing within 



88 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just 
claim to your confidence and your support. Respect 
for its authority, compliance with its laws, ac- 
quiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by 
the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis 
of our political systems is the right of the people to 
make and to alter the Constitution of Government. 
But the Constitution which at any time exists, until 
changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole 
people, is sacred and obligatory upon all. The very 
idea of the power and the right of the people to 
establish government presupposes the duty of every 
individual to obey the established government. 

" All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all 
combinations and associations, under whatever 
plausible character, with the real design to direct, 
control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation 
and action of the constituted authorities, are de- 
structive of this fundamental principle and of fatal 
tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it 
an artificial and extraordinary force, to put in the 
place of the delegated w r ill of the nation the will of 
a party — often a small but artful and enterprising 
minority of the community; and, according to the 
alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the 
public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted 
and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the 
organ of consistent and wholesome plans, digested 
by common councils and modified by mutual inter- 
ests. 

" However combinations or associations of the 
above description may now and then answer popular 
ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, 
to become potent engines by which cunning, am- 
bitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to sub- 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 89 

vert the power of the people and to usurp for 
themselves the reins of government; destroying 
afterward the very engines which have lifted them 
to unjust dominion." 



CHAPTER III 

mr. jefferson's contributions to the nation 
and to the world 

Having shown in the preceding chapters Mr. 
Jefferson's inestimable devotion to the cause of 
liberty and his great work in constructing a model 
republican State along the most practical lines, it 
shall be attempted in this chapter to show his contri- 
butions towards erecting and putting into actual 
operation his principles of government in the 
National Government and indirectly his vast con- 
tributions towards the liberties of mankind. 

Probably the most remarkable and unaccountable 
thing in Mr. Jefferson's entire career is the fact that 
his intensely active mind did not suggest to him 
the idea of framing a form of government for the 
Colonies as a whole. While he was a member of the 
Continental Congress the debate was going on in 
regard to adopting the Articles of Confederation 
and he kept minutes of the arguments made there- 
on ; but he does not appear to have taken an active 
part in the proceedings. The only proposal made 
by Mr. Jefferson, apparently, was for the appoint- 
ment of a Committee to be called the " Committee 
of the States," to consist of a member from each 

90 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 91 

State, who should remain in session during the 
recess of Congress; which was adopted, and proved 
to be abortive. This can be accounted for probably 
because of the custom, usually followed by Mr. 
Jefferson, not to take an active part in debates or 
measures not championed by him, and rarely ever to 
engage in what he considered to be useless debate. 
The fact that Dr. Franklin had this measure in 
charge also doubtless had great influence with Mr. 
Jefferson. In his Autobiography he refers to the 
fact that there was a great deal of contention and 
idle debate in Congress and his own willingness to 
listen, and mentions the practices of General Wash- 
ington, as a legislator in Virginia, and of Dr. Frank- 
lin in Congress, never to speak more than ten 
minutes on any subject, and then only on the main 
point. The defects of the Articles of Confederation 
did not, however, become so apparent until after the 
treaty of peace. 

In the meantime Mr. Jefferson had left Congress, 
and after devoting many years toward helping to 
build a State, as recited, and served as Governor of 
Virginia, he was elected a delegate to Congress, 
where he, as usual, took an active part. This was 
during the closing scenes of the war, and Mr. Jeffer- 
son was present when General Washington resigned 
his commission. A public audience was voted 
General Washington by Congress and he delivered 
a fitting speech on the occasion. The answer of 
Congress on this memorable occasion was made in 



92 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

a paper which was prepared by Mr. Jefferson in his 
most felicitous style, as is shown by the following 
extracts : 

" Called upon by your country to defend its in- 
vaded rights, you accepted the sacred charge before 
it had formed alliances, and whilst it was without 
funds, or a government to support you. You have 
conducted the great military contest with wisdom 
and fortitude, invariably regarding the rights of the 
civil power through all disasters and changes. You 
have, by the love and confidence of your fellow- 
citizens, enabled them to display their martial genius, 
and transmit their fame to posterity. You have per- 
severed, till these United States, aided by a mag- 
nanimous king and nation, have been enabled, under 
a just Providence, to close the war in freedom, 
safety and independence; on which happy event, 
we sincerely join you in congratulations. 

" Having defended the standard of liberty in this 
new world; having taught a lesson useful to those 
who inflict, and to those who feel oppression, you 
retire from the great theater of action, with the 
blessings of your fellow citizens — but the glory 
of your virtues will not terminate with your mili- 
tary command, it will continue to animate remotest 
ages." 

The most distinguished service rendered by Mr. 
Jefferson in his second and last congressional 
course was in the establishment of a money unit 
and a uniform system of coinage and currency, 
and various reports made in regard to the public 
debts, his reports in regard to the Western Terri- 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 93 

tory, and the laws framed by him in regard to their 
government. 

The fact is not generally known that it was due 
to his mathematical ingenuity and his original 
method of simplifying complex problems, that our 
simple system of money units, based on the decimal 
system, was adopted. 

The report made in regard to the Western Terri- 
tory has been heretofore referred to in connection 
with his effort to abolish slavery. It was due to Mr. 
Jefferson's great ability as a constructive statesman 
that the fundamental rights of American citizens 
were therein enunciated, and such a wise and simple 
method of erecting new States in the Western 
Territory was established. The Ordinance of 1787 
was based on this act, and that part pertaining to 
slavery, which failed of passage by one vote, was 
copied and amended so as to provide for the return 
of fugitive slaves. 

The authorship of the Ordinance of 1787, and 
especially the section in regard to slavery, has been 
the subject of much controversy, in Congress and 
elsewhere, and owing to sectional animosity, most 
of it growing out of slavery, it has been difficult to 
obtain a correct statement of the exact facts. Now 
that the subject can be viewed without prejudice or 
partiality to any one, or any section, the truth of 
history should be vindicated without regard to any 
ulterior consideration. Mabel Hill, in u Liberty 
Documents ", which is approved by Dr. Albert Bush- 



94 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

nell Hart, Professor of Government in Harvard 
University, claims that: 

" The document was the conception of Dr. Manas- 
seh Cutler, of Massachusetts: that it was reported 
to Congress by Nathan Dane, as Chairman of a 
Committee, to whom the subject had been referred, 
and it passed with almost no alteration." 

The only authorities given by Miss Hill for this 
statement are the letter of Nathan Dane to Rufus 
King dated New York, July 16, 1787, and a quota- 
tion from a speech of Daniel Webster in the U. S. 
Senate in 1829, while attempting to allay sectional 
feeling which was aroused over a bill for disposing 
of lands in the Northwestern Territory. 

Mr. Webster claimed in this speech that 

"the Ordinance of 1787 was drawn by Nathan 
Dane, then and now a citizen of Massachusetts. It 
was adopted, as I think I have understood, without 
the slightest alteration; and certainly it has hap- 
pened to few men to be the authors of a political 
measure of more large and enduring consequence. 
It fixed forever the character of the population in 
the vast regions, northwest of the Ohio by exclud- 
ing from them involuntary servitude. It impressed 
on the soil, itself, while it was yet a wilderness, an 
incapacity to sustain any other than freemen/ ' 

Nathan Dane in a letter to King says : 

" We have been employed about several objects — 
the principal ones of which have been the Govern- 
ment inclosed, and the Ohio purchase. The former 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 95 

you will see is completed; and the latter will be prob- 
ably completed tomorrow — We tried one day to 
patch up M. S. P. Systems of W. Government — 
Started new ideas, and committed the whole to Car- 
rington, Dane. R. H. Lee, Smith & Kean — We met 
several times and at last agreed on some principles, 
at least, Smith, Lee and myself . . . When I drew 
the Ordinance, which passed (a few w T ords ex- 
cepted) as I originally formed it, I had no idea the 
States would agree to the Sixth art — prohibiting 
slavery, as only Massa — of the Eastern States was 
present and therefore, omitted it in the draft; but 
finding the House favorably disposed on this sub- 
ject, after we had completed the other parts, I 
moved the art; which zvas agreed to without op- 
position. 

" P.S. States present; Massa, N. Y. N. J. Dele- 
ware, Virga, N. Carolina S. Carolina and Georgia." 

As heretofore shown, Mr. Jefferson, as chairman 
of a committee composed of Chase, Howell, and 
himself, made a report on the Government of the 
Western Territory on April 19, 1784, which con- 
tained the following: "That, after the year 1800 
there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary ser- 
vitude in any of said States, otherwise than in pun- 
ishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have 
been convicted. ,, This paragraph was struck out 
upon motion of Mr. Spaight by the narrow margin 
of one vote — and the bill was passed in that way. 

In March, 1785, an effort was made by King of 
Massachusettes to amend the act by adding to this 
rejected paragraph the following : " And that this 



96 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

regulation shall be an article of compact and re- 
main a fundamental principle of the constitutions 
between the thirteen original States, and each of 
the States described in the resolve/' but without suc- 
cess. 

In July, 1787, a committee composed of Edward 
Carrington, Nathan Dane, Richard Henry Lee, 
Kean, of South Carolina, and Melancthon Smith, of 
New York, made a report which did not contain 
Article 6 prohibiting slavery; on the second read- 
ing the sixth article, which was an identical copy 
of the paragraph stricken from Mr. Jefferson's re- 
port of April 19, 1784, with the following addition: 

" Provided always, that any person escaping into 
the same from whom labor or service is lawfully 
claimed in any of the original States such fugitive 
may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the 
person claiming his or her labor or service afore- 
said," was carried — a concession Mr. Jefferson 
would not have granted to South Carolina and 
Georgia. 

This act also repealed the resolutions of April 23, 
1784, relative to the subject of this Ordinance. In 
Benton's "Thirty Years' View," Vol. I, pp. 133- 
136, will be found a full report of the debate be- 
tween Webster, Benton, and others, in which Benton 
cited the Journal of Congress to show that Jefferson 
was the author of the first report and that three out 
of the five members of the last committee were 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 97 

from the South and that the Ordinance, as amended, 
was passed by the unanimous vote of the delegates 
from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and 
Georgia; that Nathan Dane was not the Chairman 
of the last Committee and that Mr. Webster never 
attempted to deny the correctness of Mr. Benton's 
statements from the record. A full and cor- 
rect statement of the facts in regard to this Or- 
dinance will be found in Taylor's " Origin and 
Growth of the American Constitution ", pp. 255-65 
1 — in which the following is quoted with approval 
from Bancroft, Vol. II, pp. 115-116: 

" Obeying an intimation from the South, Nathan 
Dane copied from Jefferson the prohibition of in- 
voluntary servitude in the territory, and quieted 
alarm by adding from the report of King a clause 
for the delivering up of the fugitive slave. This at 
the second reading of the ordinance he moved as a 
sixth article of compact, and on the thirteenth of 
July 1787, the great statute forbidding slavery to 
cross the river Ohio, was passed by the votes of 
Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, New 
Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts, all the States 
that were then present in Congress. . . . Thomas 
Jefferson first summoned Congress to prohibit slav- 
ery in all the territory of the United States; Rufus 
King lifted up the measure when it lay almost life- 
less on the ground, and suggested the immediate 
instead of the prospective prohibition; a Congress 
composed of five Southern States to one from New 
England and two from the Middle States, headed 
by William Grayson, supported by Richard Henry 
Lee, and using Nathan Dane as scribe, carried the 



98 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

measure to the goal in the amended form in which 
King had caused it to be referred to a committee; 
and as Jefferson had proposed, placed it under the 
sanction of an irrevocable compact/ ' 

It should not be omitted, however, in this brief 
epitome to state that thus early Mr. Jefferson set 
his first example of retrenchment when, as the re- 
sult of a report made by him, reductions were made 
in the civil list and in salaries amounting to 
$24,000.00 per year. 

The celebrated letter written by Mr. Jefferson to 
General Washington on April 16, 1784, in reply to 
an inquiry calling for his opinion in regard to the 
institution of the Order of the Cincinnati, has an 
important bearing in this connection, and shows his 
deep solicitude for democratic ideas and practices, 
as is shown by the following extracts : 

" The objections of those who are opposed to the 
institution shall be briefly sketched. You will readily 
fill them up. They urge that it is against the con- 
federation — against the letter of some of our con- 
stitutions — against the spirit of all of them — that the 
foundation on which all these are built, is the natural 
equality of man, the denial of every pre-eminence 
but that annexed to legal office, and, particularly, the 
denial of a pre-eminence by birth; that however, in 
their present dispositions, citizens might decline ac- 
cepting honorary instalments into the order; but a 
time may come, when a change of dispositions would 
render these flattering, when a well directed distri- 
bution of them might draw into the order all the 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 99 

men of talents, of office, and wealth; and in this 
case, would probably procure an ingraftment into 
the government; that in this, they will be supported 
by their foreign members, and the wishes and in- 
fluence of foreign courts; that experience has shown 
that the hereditary branches of modern governments 
are the patrons of privilege and prerogative, and not 
of the natural rights of the people, whose oppressors 
they generally are ; that besides these evils, which are 
remote, others may take place more immediately; 
that a distinction is kept up between the civil and 
military, which it is for the happiness of both to 
obliterate; that when the members assemble they 
will be proposing to do something, and what that 
something may be, will depend upon actual circum- 
stances ; that being an organized body, under habits 
of subordination, the first obstruction to enterprise 
will be already surmounted ; that the moderation and 
virtue of a single character have probably prevented 
this revolution from being closed as most others have 
been, by a subversion of that liberty it was intended 
to establish; that he is not immortal, and his suc- 
cessor, or some of his successors, may be led by false 
calculations into a less certain road to glory." 

On the 7th of May, 1784, Mr. Jefferson was 
unanimously elected a Minister Plenipotentiary to 
assist Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, then in Europe, 
in negotiating treaties of commerce with foreign 
nations. After considerable delay, which enabled 
him to pay his first and only visit to New England, 
where he gained much valuable information at first 
hand in regard to the commerce of that section, he 
arrived at Paris on the 6th of August. The draft 



ioo SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

of instructions given these Commissioners by Con- 
gress was prepared by Mr. Jefferson, and it covered 
many important matters, and especially some rather 
original suggestions concerning privateering, block- 
ades, contraband, and freedom of fisheries; but Mr. 
Jefferson admitted thereafter that Dr. Franklin was 
entitled to the credit due on account of these. It is 
safe to say that no country in the world at that time 
had abler or more broad-minded representatives. 
France had already made a satisfactory treaty with 
the United States. The Commissioners negotiated 
with Prussia, Denmark, Tuscany, and other powers 
and concluded a treaty with Prussia; but were not 
willing to press their claims with other nations under 
such disadvantageous circumstances. About this 
time Mr. Jefferson and John Adams visited England 
on a like errand and were granted an audience by 
George III, but their reception was so cool and em- 
barrassing that they did not attempt to negotiate a 
treaty. 

On March 10, 1785, Mr. Jefferson was elected 
Minister Plenipotentiary to France to succeed Dr. 
Franklin, and filled that important post until Oc- 
tober, 1789. Dr. Franklin was exceedingly popular 
with the French, and it was no easy task to fill his 
place. Mr. Jefferson paid a distinguished compli- 
ment to his old friend and fellow-countryman when, 
asked if he was going to fill Dr. Franklin's place, 
he said : " No one can fill Dr. Franklin's place. 
I merely succeed him." 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 101 

Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Adams continued as joint 
representatives of the United States in endeavoring 
to make commercial treaties and looking after the 
finances of the United States in Europe, and dis- 
tinguished themselves by introducing plain dress and 
speech as our representatives. They were especially 
opposed to paying tribute to the Barbary pirates, so 
common then in Europe among all nations. It was 
on this occasion that Mr. Jefferson went so far as 
to recommend that the United States join with the 
European nations in a war for the subjugation of 
this piratical power. 

Mr. Jefferson proved himself to be a most practi- 
cal, powerful, and popular minister. He was a 
close student of European politics and especially of 
the French nation, which he admired very much. 
He won the confidence of all classes and never 
failed, on all proper occasions, to advocate his ideas 
of government and show his devotion to the cause 
of freedom for mankind. 

While in France he had his " Notes on Virginia n 
published for distribution among his friends, and in 
that way gave a clear and candid expression of 
his views on all of the most important questions 
pertaining to our republican institutions, and a brief 
description of the resources of his native State and 
its government and certain improvements suggested 
by him. This is a masterpiece, and deserves care- 
ful study. 

Mr. Jefferson's correspondence with friends in 



102 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

this country while in France shows his impressions 
and opinions of persons, society, politics, literature, 
science, the resources of the country, royalty, and, 
in fact, everything coming under his observation. 

There is found running through all of his volu- 
minous correspondence his abhorrence of the abuses 
of the rights of the people, and a warning to his 
countrymen to cherish and preserve our free insti- 
tutions. 

He kept himself fully advised about everything 
in a political way that was transpiring at home, and 
was especially solicitous about the inefficiency of the 
general government under the Articles of Confed- 
eration. He was in thorough accord with General 
Washington, Mr. Madison, and others, who favored 
a Constitutional Convention as to the necessity for 
one, as is fully shown by his letters to them. He had 
the highest esteem for the ability and character of 
the men who attended the Convention and framed 
the Constitution, and expressed great admiration 
for the Constitution; but he did not agree in prin- 
ciple with some of its provisions, and always la- 
mented the fact that the Convention was held behind 
closed doors. He deeply regretted that there was 
no bill of rights ensuring freedom of religion, free- 
dom of press, freedom of the person under the writ 
of habeas corpus, and trial by jury in civil as well 
as in criminal cases, and provisions against monopo- 
lies and standing armies. He advised his friends to 
vote for the ratification of the Constitution and 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 103 

trust to the good sense of the citizens to see that it 
was amended in the respects named; which was 
later done by the adoption of the first ten amend- 
ments, which he aided in having accomplished. 

A slight disturbance in Massachusetts resulting 
from having commercial connections cut off with 
England, which was greatly exaggerated, afforded 
Mr. Jefferson an opportunity to draw a comparison 
between our government and those in Europe in 
letters to Colonel Carrington, Mr. Madison, and 
other friends. 

The letter to Colonel Carrington is as follows: 

"I am persuaded myself, that the good sense of 
the people will always be found to be the best army. 
They may be led astray for a moment, but will 
soon correct themselves; the people are the only 
censors of their governors; and even their errors 
will tend to keep these to the true principles of 
their institutions. To punish such errors too se- 
verely, would be to suppress the only safeguard of 
the public liberty. The way to prevent these 
ii regular interpositions of the people, is to give 
them full information of their affairs, through the 
channel of the public papers, and to contrive that 
those papers should penetrate the whole mass of 
the people. The basis of our government being 
the opinion of the people, the very first object 
should be to keep that right; and were it left to 
me to decide whether we should have a government 
without newspapers, or nezvspapers without a gov- 
ernment, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer 
the latter. But I would insist, that every man 
should receive those papers, and be capable of read- 



I04 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

ing them. I am convinced that those societies, (as 
the Indians) which live without government, enjoy 
in their general mass an infinitely greater degree 
of happiness, than those who live under the Eu- 
ropean governments. Among the former, public 
opinion is in the place of law, and restrains morals 
as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among 
the latter, under pretence of governing, they have 
divided their nation into two classes, wolves and 
sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is the true pic- 
ture of Europe. Cherish, therefore, the spirit of 
our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not 
be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them 
by enlightening them. If once they become inat- 
tentive to the public affairs, you, and I, and Con- 
gress, and assemblies, judges and governors, shall 
all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our 
general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; 
and experience declares, that man is the only ani- 
mal which devours his own kind; for I can apply 
no milder term to the governments of Europe, and 
to the general prey of the rich on the poor." 

The fullest expression of Mr. Jefferson's views 
on the Constitution, showing his likes and dislikes, 
is contained in a letter of December 20, 1787, to 
Mr. Madison as follows : 

" I like much the general idea of framing a gov- 
ernment, which should go on of itself peaceably, 
without needing continual recurrence to the State 
legislatures. I like the organization of the govern- 
ment into legislative, judiciary, and executive. I 
like the power given the legislature to levy taxes, 
and for the reason solely, I approve of the greater 
house being chosen by the people directly. For 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 105 

though I think a house, so chosen, will be far in- 
ferior to the present Congress, will be very illy 
qualified to legislate for the union, for foreign 
nations, &c; yet this evil does not weigh against 
the good of preserving inviolate the fundamental 
principle, that the people are not to be taxed but 
by representatives chosen immediately by them- 
selves. I am captivated by the compromise of the 
opposite claims of the great and little States, of the 
latter to equal, and the former to proportional 
influence. I am much pleased, too, with the sub- 
stitution of the method of voting by persons, 
instead of that of voting by States; and I like the 
negative given to the executive, conjointly with a 
third of either house; though I should have liked 
it better, had the judiciary been associated for that 
purpose, or invested separately with a similar 
power. There are other good things of less 
moment. 

" I will now tell you what I do not like. First, 
the omission of a bill of rights, providing clearly, 
and without the aid of sophism, for freedom of 
religion, freedom of the press, protecting against 
standing armies, restriction of monopolies, the 
eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus 
laws, and trials by a jury in all matters of fact 
triable by the laws of the land, and not by the laws 
of nations. To say, as Mr. Wilson does, that a bill 
of rights was not necessary, because all is reserved 
in the case of the general government, which is not 
given, while in the particular ones, all is given 
which is not reserved, might do for the audience 
to which it was addressed; but it is surely a gratis 
dictum, the reverse of which might just as well 
be said; and it is opposed by strong inferences 
from the body of the instrument, as well as from 



106 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

the omission of the clause of our present confedera- 
tion, which had made the reservation in express 
terms. It was hard to conclude, because there had 
been a want of uniformity among the States as to 
the cases triable by jury, because some have been 
so incautious as to dispense with this mode of trial 
in certain cases, therefore the more prudent States 
shall be reduced to the same level of calamity. It 
would have been much more just and wise to have 
concluded the other way, that as most of the States 
had preserved, with jealousy, this sacred palladium 
of liberty, those who had wandered, should be 
brought back to it; and to have established general 
right, rather than general wrong. For I consider 
all the ill as established, which may be established. 
I have a right to nothing, which another has a 
right to take away; and Congress will have a right 
to take away trials by jury in all civil cases. Let 
me add, that a bill of rights is what the people are 
entitled to against every government on earth, gen- 
eral or particular; and what no just government 
should refuse, or rest on inference. 

" The second feature I dislike, and strongly dis- 
like, is the abandonment, in every instance, of the 
principle of rotation in office, and most particularly 
in the case of the president. Reason and experi- 
ence tell us, that the first magistrate will always be 
re-elected if he may be re-elected. He is then an 
officer for life. This once observed, it becomes of 
so much consequence to certain nations, to have 
a friend or a foe at the head of our affairs, that 
they will interfere with money and with arms." 

Mr. Jefferson was on terms of the closest inti- 
macy and friendship with Lafayette and witnessed 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 107 

the opening scenes of the French Revolution with 
the deepest interest and solicitude, attributing it 
directly to the doctrines of liberty and free gov- 
ernment taught by himself and other American 
patriots and the impressions brought from our 
country by Lafayette and his French comrades who 
had aided so nobly in winning our liberties. He 
was the trusted friend and adviser of the French 
patriots as far as he could consistently advise them 
while a minister at that Court. Unfortunately Mr. 
Jefferson's advice was not accepted when the king 
and his ministers agreed to a compromise yielding 
every safeguard provided by the British Constitu- 
tion and the fundamental doctrines of our system 
except a king and nobility. 

Mr. Jefferson in his Autobiography records his 
recollection of these scenes, in part, as follows: 

" I considered a successful reformation of Gov- 
ernment in France, as insuring a general reforma- 
tion through Europe, and the resurrection to a new 
life, of their people, now ground to dust by the 
abuses of the governing powers. I was much ac- 
quainted with the leading patriots of the Assembly. 
Being from a country which had successfully 
passed through a similar reformation, they were 
disposed to my acquaintance, and had some confi- 
dence in me. I urged, most strenuously, an im- 
mediate compromise; to secure what the govern- 
ment was now ready to yield, and trust to future 
occasions for what might still be wanting. It was 
well understood that the King would grant, at this 
time, 1. Freedom of the person by habeas corpus: 



108 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

2. Freedom of conscience: 3. Freedom of the press: 
4. Trial by jury: 5. A representative legislature: 
6. Annual meetings: 7. The origination of laws: 
8. The exclusive right of taxation and appropria- 
tion: and 9. The responsibility of ministers; and 
with the exercise of these powers they could obtain, 
in future, whatever might be further necessary to 
improve and preserve their constitution. They 
thought otherwise, however, and events have 
proved their lamentable error. For, after thirty 
years of war, foreign and domestic, the loss of mil- 
lions of lives, the prostration of private happiness, 
and the foreign subjugation of their own country 
for a time, they have obtained no more, nor even 
that securely. They were unconscious of (for who 
could foresee?) the melancholy sequel of their well 
meant perseverance ; that their physical force would 
be usurped by a first tyrant to trample on the inde- 
pendence, and even the existence, of other nations : 
that this would afford a fatal example for the 
atrocious conspiracy of Kings against their people; 
would generate their unholy and homicide alliance 
to make common cause among themselves, and to 
crush, by the power of the whole, the efforts of any 
part to moderate their abuses and oppressions. 
• . • • • • • • 

" The King was now become a passive machine 
in the hands of the National Assembly, and had 
he been left to himself, he would have willingly 
acquiesced in whatever they should devise as best 
for the nation. A wise constitution would have 
been formed, hereditary in his line, himself placed 
at its head, with powers so large as to enable him 
to do all the good of his station, and so limited, as 
to restrain him from its abuse. This he would 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 109 

have faithfully administered, and more than this, 
I do not believe, he ever wished. But he had a 
Queen of absolute sway over his weak mind and 
timid virtue, and of a character the reverse of his 
in all points. This angel, as gaudily painted in the 
rhapsodies of Burke, with some smartness of 
fancy, but no sound sense, was proud, disdainful of 
restraint, indignant of all obstacles to her will, eager 
in the pursuit of pleasure, and firm enough to hold 
to her desires, or perish in their wreck. Her 
inordinate gambling and dissipations, with those 
of the Count d'Artois, and others of her clique, had 
been a sensible item in the exhaustion of the 
treasury, which called into action the reforming 
hand of the nation; and her opposition to it, her 
inflexible perverseness, and dauntless spirit, led 
herself to the Guillotine, drew the King on with 
her, and plunged the world into crimes and calami- 
ties, which will forever stain the pages of modern 
history. I have ever believed, that had there been 
no Queen, there would have been no revolution. 
No force would have been provoked, nor exer- 
cised." 

Mr. Jeflferson paints a vivid picture of the open- 
ing scenes of the French Revolution and relates 
with perfect candor the advice given by him to 
Lafayette and his friends, and closes his account 
as follows : 

' The appeal to the rights of man, which had 
been made in the United States, was taken up by 
France, first of the European nations. From her, 
the spirit has spread over those of the South. The 
tyrants of the North have allied indeed against it; 



no SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

but it is irrestible. Their opposition will only mul- 
tiply its millions of human victims; their own 
satellites will catch it and the condition of man 
through the civilized world, will be finally and 
greatly ameliorated. This is a wonderful instance 
of great events from small causes. So inscrutable 
is the arrangement of causes and consequences in 
this world, that a two penny duty on tea, unjustly 
imposed in a sequestered part of it, changes the 
condition of all its inhabitants." 



Mr. Jefferson pays the following beautiful 
tribute to the French people in his Autobiography : 

"And here, I cannot leave this great and good 
country, without expressing my sense of its pre- 
eminence of character among the nations of the 
earth. A more benevolent people I have never 
known, nor greater warmth and devotedness in 
their select friendships. Their kindness and ac- 
commodations to strangers is unparalleled, and the 
hospitality of Paris is beyond anything I had con- 
ceived to be practicable in a large city. Their 
eminence, too, in science, the communicative dis- 
positions of their scientific men, the politeness of 
the general manners, the ease and vivacity of their 
conversation, give a charm to their society, to be 
found nowhere else. In a comparison of this, with 
other countries, we have the proof of primacy, 
which was given to Themistocles, after the battle 
of Salamis. Every general voted to himself the 
first reward of valor, and the second to Themis- 
tocles. So, ask the travelled inhabitant of any na- 
tion, in what country on earth would you rather 
live? — Certainly, in my own, where are all my 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS III 

friends, my relations, and the earliest and sweetest 
affections and recollections of my life. Which 
would be your second choice? France. M 

From a close scrutiny of Mr. Jefferson's life up 
to this period, and a thorough examination of all 
his public acts and writings, it will be discovered 
that instead of having borrowed his ideas of gov- 
ernment from the French and become contaminated 
by his residence in France, as his enemies claimed, 
he had performed his most important work at home, 
as heretofore shown, and was in reality an adviser 
of the French patriots along the most conservative 
and practical lines. 

In " Notes on Virginia '' Mr. Jefferson gives a 
brief sketch of the Constitution of Virginia and 
expressed the opinion that it was no more than an 
act of the legislature, and could be changed by any 
subsequent legislature, and insisted that a consti- 
tutional convention should be held and a binding 
constitution be framed, and that many new and 
important additions should be made. Anticipating 
that such a convention would be held he drafted a 
tentative bill of rights and constitution to submit 
for its consideration. 

In speaking of the origin of our form of State 
governments he says: 

" It is for the happiness of those united in society 
to harmonize as much as possible in matters which 
they must of necessity transact together. Civil 
government being the sole object of forming so- 



ii2 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

cieties, its administration must be conducted by 
common consent. Ours perhaps are more peculiar 
than those of any other in the universe. It is a 
composition of the freest principles of the English 
constitution, with others derived from natural right 
and natural reason. To these nothing can be more 
opposed than the maxims of absolute monarchies.'' 

Mr. Jefferson, as before shown, was a scholar 
of the widest attainments, and his knowledge of 
ancient and modern languages, including Greek, 
Latin, French, Italian and Spanish, and also his 
love of science, fine arts, and other accomplish- 
ments, were of great service to him in France. As 
Minister he never failed to do something practical 
to benefit his government and obtain every advan- 
tage possible for his countrymen. The burden of 
all his efforts was to accomplish some lasting 
benefit, especially in adding some useful plant to 
the culture of the country; and his efforts were 
devoted especially toward rice and olives. He suc- 
ceeded in sending a very rare specimen of upland 
rice seed to some friends in South Carolina and 
Georgia, where he believed it could be grown to ad- 
vantage, which proved to be very successful; and 
also sent olive plants to them. 

Mr. Jefferson also devoted considerable time to 
the study of the sciences and arts, especially sculp- 
ture, painting and architecture, and was instru- 
mental in improving the architecture of Virginia 
especially, as a result of this knowledge. He was 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 113 

an inventive genius of no small proportions also, 
and while in Taris invented a moldboard for a 
plow for which he was voted a gold medal in 
1790. Eighteen years later the Royal Agricultural 
Society of the Seine, to which he gave his original 
plow, presented him a superb up-to-date plow 
containing his improvements. He also invented 
the folding camp-stool, the revolving office chair, 
the two-wheeled sulky, the copying press and the 
pedometer; and as an architect, designed his own 
beautiful home, Monticello, and all of the buildings 
on the campus of the University of Virginia. 

Before Mr. Jefferson reached home he received 
a letter from President Washington offering him 
the position of Secretary of State in his Cabinet, 
which was accepted. 

The new government had been in existence for 
about a year before Mr. Jefferson assumed his 
duties as Secretary of State, and Alexander Ham- 
ilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, had already 
become the controlling factor in directing the 
measures of the administration. It is not necessary 
for the purposes of this discussion to go into any 
lengthy details as to Mr. Jefferson's services as 
Secretary of State, as the record made by him 
amply justifies the statement that he is the author 
of the new diplomacy introduced by the United 
States, so steadily adhered to since that time, of 
combating all schemes based on lying and decep- 
tion, and insisting upon the simple rules of honesty 



ri4 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

and good faith resulting from an application of the 
rules of international law. 

The most difficult and delicate subject managed 
by him, without doubt, was the affair with Genet, 
the French Ambassador, and this was so skillfully 
managed by him without brag or bluster as to 
forever vindicate the rule of reason and justice and 
fair play in dealing with nations. 

It very soon developed that there was a wide 
divergence of opinion between Mr. Jefferson and 
Mr. Hamilton as to the proper construction to be 
placed on our Constitution, and as to whether the 
republican or monarchical view should prevail. 
Mr. Hamilton was in favor of a strong, centralized 
government and had little or no confidence in the 
ability of the people to govern themselves or re- 
publican institutions generally. In the Anas left by 
Mr. Jefferson he does not hesitate to state that the 
members of the Cabinet were inimical to his opin- 
ions, and that he believed Mr. Hamilton was the 
controlling factor in the Cabinet and dominated the 
administrations of Washington and Adams, and was 
at heart a monarchist. 

It was only natural, therefore, that Mr. Jefferson 
should resign his position, as Secretary of State, 
notwithstanding his warm attachment for President 
Washington. 

From this time forward there have been two lead- 
ing political parties in this country based in reality 
upon the ideas of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Hamilton, 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 115 

but it is not intended to assert that any one party 
has consistently held to the opinions of either. At 
the beginning Mr. Jefferson had to combat what 
he called Monarchists, or the worshipers of the 
British Constitution, and from his notes it is easy 
to see that he did not have very congenial company 
in Mr. Adams and Mr. Hamilton. In one of the 
many conversations on this subject, Mr. Adams 
observed, as reported by Mr. Jefferson, in speaking 
of the British Constitution: " Purge that Constitu- 
tion of its corruption and give its popular branch 
equality of representation and it would be the most 
perfect Constitution ever devised by the wit of 
man." Hamilton paused and said : " Purge it of 
its corruption and give to the popular branch 
equality of representation and it would become an 
impracticable government; as it stands at present, 
with all of its supposed defects, it is the most per- 
fect government which ever existed." 

In commenting on this Mr. Jefferson says: 

" And this was assuredly the exact line which 
separated the political creeds of these two gentle- 
men. The one was for two hereditary branches 
and an honest elective one: the other for an heredi- 
tary king, with a house of lords and commons cor- 
rupted to his will, and standing between him and 
the people. Hamilton was, indeed, a singular 
character. Of acute understanding, disinterested, 
honest, and honorable in all private transactions, 
amiable in society and duly valuing virtue in pri- 
vate life, yet so bewitched and perverted by the 



n6 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

British example, as to be under thorough convic- 
tion that corruption was essential to the government 
of a nation." 

In another conversation on August 13, 1791, 
Mr. Jefferson says: 

"Alexander Hamilton, in condemning Mr. 
Adams' writings, and most particular 4 Davila \ 
as having a tendency to weaken the present gov- 
ernment, declared in substance as follows : * I own 
it is my own opinion, though I do not publish it 
in Dan or Beersheba, that the present government 
is not that which will answer the ends of society, 
by giving stability and protection to its rights, and 
that it will probably be found expedient to go into 
the British form. However, since we have under- 
taken the experiment, I am for giving it a fair 
course, whatever my expectations may be. The 
success, indeed, so far, is greater than I had ex- 
pected, and therefore, at present, success seems 
more possible than it had done heretofore, and 
there are still other stages of improvement, which, 
if the present does not succeed, may be tried, and 
ought to be tried before we give up the republican 
form altogether; for that mind must be really 
depraved, which would not prefer the equality of 
political rights, which is the foundation of pure 
republicanism if it can be obtained consistently 
with order. Therefore, whoever, by his writings 
disturbs the present order of things is really 
blameable, however pure his intentions may be, and 
he was sure Mr. Adams' were pure." 

From the last day of December, 1793, when Mr. 
Jefferson resigned his Cabinet position, until March 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 117 

4, 1797, when he assumed the duties of Vice- 
President, Mr. Jefferson was engaged in trying to 
build up his magnificent landed estate near Char- 
lottesville, Virginia, and continued his extensive 
correspondence with friends in two hemispheres, 
and his incessant propagation of republican ideas 
of government through his friends and admirers, 
as w r ell as the delightful studies which he never 
ceased to pursue, in season and out of season. 

During this period of comparative rest he was 
highly honored by being elected President of the 
American Philosophical Society, the most distin- 
guished society in the United States; which posi- 
tion had been held alone by Dr. Franklin and Rit- 
tenhouse. This honor was greatly prized by Mr. 
Jeflferson, and he was a most active member and 
ornament of the society for many years, and did 
much by his example to encourage the growth and 
development of the sciences and arts in this coun- 
try. 

Mr. Adams and Mr. Jeflferson were the opposing 
candidates for the Presidency to succeed General 
Washington, and the contest between them was 
waged w T ith considerable acrimony. The election 
was very close, Mr. Adams receiving seventy-one 
electoral votes and Mr. Jeflferson sixty-eight, which 
as the law then stood made Mr. Adams President 
and Mr. Jeflferson Vice-President. 

Mr. Jeflferson made an ideal presiding officer 
for the Senate and during his term of office gath- 



n8 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

ered the data for " Jefferson's Manual " of parlia- 
mentary usage, which he published, and which has 
ever since been the guide of both houses of Con- 
gress. During the administration of Mr. Adams 
party spirit ran high and the contest between the 
ideas of government advocated by Mr. Hamilton, 
who still controlled the policies of the Federalists, 
and Mr. Jefferson, who was recognized as the 
leader of the school of republican policies. The 
excesses of the French Revolution had a decided 
tendency to alarm all conservatives, and it caused 
all sorts of exaggerated misrepresentations to be 
made against Mr. Jefferson, who still had faith in 
the ability of the people to govern themselves, and 
was not willing to join in the conspiracy to crush 
liberal views in France. 

This lack of faith on the part of the Federalists 
in popular government caused them to enact what 
are known as the Alien and Sedition Laws, which 
authorized the President to have any undesirable 
foreigners sent out of the country, and made it 
highly criminal for any one to write or speak 
against the President or any one in authority. 
These laws proved to be very unpopular, and were 
used by Mr. Jefferson and his friends with most 
telling effect at the next election. The contest was 
between Adams and Pinckney, and Jefferson and 
Burr, and the result was in favor of the latter 
ticket. Jefferson and Burr having received the 
same number of electoral votes, it was incumbent 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 119 

upon the House of Representatives, as the Consti- 
tution then stood, to decide who should be Presi- 
dent. Owing to the bitterness engendered by the 
election, the contest was a protracted and bitter one, 
lasting five days and nights when, after thirty-five 
ballots, Mr. Jefferson was elected President by one 
vote. 

Without doubt this was the bitterest and most 
vindictive campaign ever conducted in this coun- 
try, and Mr. Jefferson was made the target for 
every form of abuse, both political and personal, 
and had a thorough exemplification of his favorite 
saying, " that freedom of discussion, unaided by 
power, was sufficient for the protection and propa- 
gation of truth ". 

Mr. Jefferson honestly believed that the very life 
of republican institutions was at stake, and that 
the Federalists, under the leadership of Mr. Ham- 
ilton, were at heart in favor of what he called the 
" British Example "; and, on the contrary, the Fed- 
eralists honestly believed that Mr. Jefferson was a 
dangerous leader and at heart a revolutionist after 
the order of the Jacobins of France. 

The circumstances causing Mr. Adams to be 
misled by Mr. Hamilton, and ultimately to be de- 
feated, are related by Mr. Jefferson in the Alias, 
as follows: 

" Mr. Adams had originally been a republican. 
The glare of royalty and nobility during his mis- 
sion to England, had made him believe their fascina- 



120 SAFEGUARDS OF. LIBERTY 

tion a necessary ingredient in government; and 
Shay's rebellion, not sufficiently understood where 
he then was, seemed to prove that the absence of 
want and oppression, was not a sufficient guarantee 
of order. His book on the American constitutions 
having made known his political bias, he was taken 
up by the monarchical Federalists in his absence, 
and on his return to the United States, he was by 
them made to believe that the general disposition 
of our citizens was favorable to monarchy. Mr. 
Adams, I am sure, has been long since convinced of 
the treacheries with which he was surrounded dur- 
ing his administration. He has since thoroughly 
seen, that his constituents were devoted to repub- 
lican government, and whether his judgment is re- 
settled on its ancient basis, or not, he is conformed 
as a good citizen to the will of the majority, and 
would now, I am persuaded, maintain its repub- 
lican structure with the zeal and fidelity belonging 
to his character. For even an enemy has said, ' he 
is always an honest man, and often a great one \ 
But in the fervor of the fury and follies of those 
who made him their stalking horse, no man who 
did not witness it can form an idea of their un- 
bridled madness, and the terrorism with which they 
surrounded themselves. The horrors of the French 
revolution, then raging, aided them mainly, and 
using that as a raw head and bloody bones, they 
were enabled by their stratagems of X. Y. Z. in 
which * * * * * * was a leading mountebank, 
their tales of tub-plots, ocean massacres, bloody 
buoys, and pulpit lyings and slanderings, and 
maniacal ravings of their Gardeners, their Osgoods 
and parishes, to spread alarm into all but the firmest 
breasts. Their Attorney General had the impu- 
dence to say to a republican member, that deporta- 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 121 

tion must be resorted to, of which, said he, 'you 
republicans have set the example 9 ; thus daring 
to identify us with the murderous Jacobins of 
France." 

" This has been happily done. Federalism and 
monarchism have languished from that moment, 
until their treasonable combinations with the 
enemies of their country during the late war, 
their plots of dismembering the union and their 
Hartford convention, have consigned them to the 
tomb of the dead; and I fondly hope, 'we may 
now truly say, we are all republicans, all feder- 
alists ', and that the motto of the standard to which 
our country will forever rally, will be, i federal 
union, and republican government ' ; and sure I am 
we may say, that we are indebted for the preserva- 
tion of this point of ralliance, to that opposition 
of which so injurious an idea is so artfully insinu- 
ated and excited in this history. 

" Much of this relation is notorious to the world ; 
and many intimate proofs of it will be found in 
these notes. From the moment where they end, of 
my retiring from the administration, the federalists 
got unchecked hold of General Washington." 

The Reign of Terror in France was calculated 
to shake the faith of most men in democratic gov- 
ernment, more especially those who were in sym- 
pathy with English ideas at that time. The sad- 
dest spectacle in the life of any modern statesman 
was the loss of equilibrium by Mr. Burke at this 
time. His rantings against the French nation can 
only he explained upon the theory that he not only 
lost his powers of discrimination and departed from 



122 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

his own incomparable teachings that it was dan- 
gerous to indict a nation, but that he was mentally 
unbalanced as the result of the loss of his son and 
other misfortunes so pathetically recounted by 
Buckle. 

In a letter written by Mr. Adams July 13, 1813, 
to Mr. Jefferson, reviewing their differences of 
opinion as to the French Revolution, he said : 

" The first time that you and I differed in opinion 
on any material question, was after your arrival 
from Europe, and that point was the French 
Revolution. 

" You were well persuaded in your own mind, 
that the nation would suceed in establishing a free 
republican government. I was as well persuaded 
in mine, that a project of such a government over 
five and twenty millions of people, when four and 
twenty millions and five hundred thousand of them 
could neither read nor write, was as unnatural, 
irrational and impracticable as it would be over the 
elephants, lions, tigers, panthers, wolves and bears 
in the royal menagerie at Versailles. Napoleon 
has lately invented a w T ord which perfectly ex- 
presses my opinion, at that time and ever since. 
He calls the project Ideology; and John Randolph, 
though he was fourteen years ago, as wild an 
enthusiast for equality and fraternity as any of 
them, appears to be now a regenerated proselyte to 
Napoleon's opinion and mine, that it was all mad- 
ness. 

" This gross Ideology of them all, first suggested 
to me the thought and the inclination which I after- 
wards hinted to you in London, of writing some- 
thing upon aristocracy. 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 123 

11 In truth my defence of the constitution and 
1 Discourses on Davila p laid the foundation for 
that immense unpopularity, which fell like the 
tower of Siloam, upon me. Your steady defence 
of democratical principles, and your invariable 
favorable opinion of the French revolution, laid 
the foundation of your unbounded popularity. ,, 



Mr. Jefferson deliberately undertook to restore 
the government to the people and make it truly 
republican in all of its parts. His first Cabinet was 
a model one to carry out his plans and was as 
follows : 

James Madison, Secretary of State; Albert Gal- 
latin, Secretary of the Treasury; General Dearborn, 
Secretary of War; Robert Smith, Secretary of 
the Navy; and Levi Lincoln, Attorney General. 

He made radical changes in many of the customs 
and usages which had grown up around the execu- 
tive with a purpose to eradicate every vestige of 
royalty and began by avoiding all ostentation and 
show in his inauguration by walking to the Capitol 
with a few friends and being sworn in by the Chief 
Justice in the presence of Congress, and later send- 
ing his messages to Congress, instead of going 
in state as his predecessors had done before 
him. 

He also abolished levees, and used every means 
possible to cut down the expenses of every depart- 
ment of the government, and reducing the number 
of employees to the lowest. 



124 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

In his inaugural address, Mr. Jefferson defined 
with admirable clearness and directness his ideas of 
republican principles, and made an appeal to the peo- 
ple, as a whole, for the support of the government. 
This address in part is as follows : 

" Equal and exact justice to all men, of what- 
ever state or persuasion, religious or political; 
peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all 
nations, entangling alliances with none; the sup- 
port of the State governments in all their rights, 
as the most competent administrations for our 
domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against 
anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of the 
general government in its whole constitutional 
vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and 
safely abroad; a jealous care of the right of election 
by the people, — a mild and safe corrective of 
abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution, 
where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute 
acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the 
vital principle of republics, from which is no 
appeal but to force, the vital principle and im- 
mediate parent of despotism; a well disciplined 
militia, — our best reliance in peace and for the first 
moments of war, when regulars may relieve them; 
the supremacy of the civil over the military au- 
thority; economy in the public expense, that labor 
may be lightly burdened; the honest payment of 
our debts and sacred preservation of the public 
faith; encouragement of agriculture and of com- 
merce as its handmaid; the diffusion of information 
and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public 
reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press; 
freedom of person under the protection of the 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 125 

habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially 
selected. These principles form the bright con- 
stellation, which has gone before us, and guided 
our steps through an age of revolution and reforma- 
tion. The wisdom of our sages and the blood of 
our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. 
They should be the creed of our political faith, the 
text of civic instruction, the touch-stone by which 
to try the services of those we trust; and should 
we wander from them in moments of error or of 
alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps, and to 
regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, 
and safety. " 

The definition of republican principles of govern- 
ment, as applicable to our dual system of govern- 
ment, given by Mr. Jefferson in this address, has 
never been excelled, and certainly no better chart 
can be found in all his writings of his own concep- 
tion of a truly federated republic. 

Mr. Jefferson visited in person every department 
of the government and obtained a list of the officers 
employed, the salaries paid each and their duties, 
and he had a most thorough and searching investi- 
gation made of the finances and sources of revenue, 
and with the aid of his Cabinet reduced the ex- 
penses of the government by cutting down the num- 
ber of employees and their salaries as far as pos- 
sible. In his first message he presented plans for 
further cutting down expenses and reducing the 
burdens of taxation. 

It is only necessary in a general way to call at- 



126 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

tention to the most important reforms accomplished 
by him during his two terms. 

The diplomatic establishment was reduced to 
three ministers, namely, to England, France, and 
Spain. The Army and Navy were reduced to the 
lowest limits possible. All internal revenue taxes 
were repealed, which abolished a horde of in- 
spectors and collectors. All persons convicted of 
violating the sedition laws were pardoned. The 
public debt was greatly reduced, and the policy 
theretofore pursued, " that a public debt is a public 
blessing ", was eradicated. 

The statute creating sixteen new federal districts, 
which had been so hastily enacted and new Judges 
appointed to fill the positions by Mr. Adams, was 
repealed and the " Midnight Justices " so called, 
were thus disposed of after a contest in the courts, 
the repealing act being held constitutional. Another 
act was also passed forbidding the further importa- 
tion of slaves after the year 1808 under the provi- 
sion in the Constitution. 

The greatest single achievement, however, was 
the acquisition, by purchase, of a vast terri- 
tory comprising now fifteen States from the 
French Government, known as the Louisiana 
Purchase. 

Considering the Louisiana Purchase as a whole, 
and viewing Mr. Jefferson's far-sightedness in deal- 
ing with it in all its aspects, it is beyond all ques- 
tion the greatest act of any executive since the 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 127 

adoption of the Constitution. The Federalists were 
opposed to it for many reasons, chief of which 
doubtless were their fears of loss of political power 
in New England and that a republic could not 
govern so extensive a territory and the possibility 
of two republics resulting therefrom. Mr. Jeffer- 
son realized the importance of controlling the navi- 
gation of the Mississippi River and the dangers 
from a monarchical government controlling that 
vast territory and causing friction, and possibly 
wars, with the United States. His sagacity in tak- 
ing advantage of Napoleon's financial embarrass- 
ment, and in conducting secret negotiations for a 
considerable time before the purchase, and his will- 
ingness to take the responsibility for the successful 
consummation of the deal, although he was of the 
opinion that it would require an amendment to the 
Constitution, are truly remarkable. The thorough- 
ness and system used in exploring the new country, 
and laying all the facts before Congress, having 
the treaty adopted, and the money voted for the 
purchase were characteristic of Mr. Jefferson; and 
in fact the entire transaction was largely the result 
of his initiative. It required courage and unlimited 
faith in republican institutions to accomplish this 
gigantic undertaking. 

There was naturally considerable opposition to 
many of Mr. Jefferson's other recommendations, 
but this gave him an opportunity by his messages 
and correspondence to fully develop his ideas of 



128 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

republican institutions, and as a result of eight 
years' service, in which he generally had his way, 
the last vestige of monarchical and aristocratic 
ideas, which he had so bitterly opposed, was ban- 
ished from the executive and legislative branches 
of the government. 

The effect of Mr. Jefferson's democratic manners 
while an occupant of the White House in contrast 
with the aristocratic customs of Washington and 
Adams, as well as the general policies of his admin- 
istration, was to inspire confidence in the masses 
of the people in the security of their liberties from 
the encroachments of the central government. The 
policies advocated by Mr. Jefferson were extremely 
popular with the people, and his second election 
was well-nigh unanimous. The Federalists only 
carried fourteen electoral votes in opposition. At 
the end of his second term the Federalist party was 
practically extinct. 

Madison and Monroe were both disciples and 
warm personal friends of Mr. Jefferson, and both 
looked to him for advice on important matters. 
Monroe's administration is known as the " era of 
good feeling ", when all factions became thoroughly 
reconciled to the Constitution and a national spirit 
was plainly evident. John Fiske, in a masterly 
essay on " James Madison as a Constructive States- 
man ", makes the following comments on the men 
who were instrumental in establishing our govern- 
ment: 




MAKERS OF Till- l/XITED STATES 



RNMENT 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 129 

" In the work of constructing our national gov- 
ernment and putting it into operation there were 
five men distinguished above all others. In an 
especial sense they deserve to be called the five 
founders of the American Union. Naming them 
chronologically, in the order of the times at which 
the influence of each was most powerfully felt, 
they come as follows: George Washington, James 
Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, 
and John Marshall. But for Washington it is very 
doubtful if independence would have been won, and 
it is probable that the federal Constitution would 
not have been adopted. The fact that the experi- 
ment of the new government could be tried under 
his guidance made quite enough votes for it to turn 
the scales in its favor. His weight of authority 
was also needed to secure the adoption of Hamil- 
ton's measures and to prevent the half-formed na- 
tion from being drawn into the vortex of European 
war. As to Madison, he was the constructive 
thinker who played the foremost part among the 
men who made the Constitution, besides contribut- 
ing powerfully with tongue and pen to the argu- 
ments which secured its ratification. In this work 
of advocacy Hamilton reenforced and surpassed 
Madison, and then in the work of practical con- 
struction, of setting the new government into opera- 
tion, Hamilton, with his financial measures, took 
the lead. But the boldness of Hamilton's policy 
alarmed many people. There was a widespread 
fear that the government would develop into some 
kind of a despotism, and this dread seemed pres- 
ently to be justified by the alien and sedition laws. 
Other people were equally afraid of democracy, be- 
cause in France democracy was overturning society 
and setting up the guillotine. There was such a 



130 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

sad want of public confidence among the American 
people between 1790 and 1800, that an outbreak of 
civil war at the end of that period would not have 
been at all strange. To create the needed confi- 
dence, to show the doubters and scoffers on the one 
hand that the new government was really a gov- 
ernment of the people, by the people, and for the 
people, and on the other hand that such a govern- 
ment can be as orderly and conservative as any 
other, — this was the noble work of Jefferson, and 
it was in his presidency that the sentiment of loyalty 
to the Union may be said to have taken root in 
the hearts of the people. One thing more was 
needed, and that was a large, coherent body of 
judicial decisions establishing the scope and purport 
of the Constitution, so as to give adequate powers 
to the national government, while still protecting 
State rights. It was that prince of jurists, John 
Marshall, who, as chief justice of the United 
States for one-third of a century, thus finished the 
glorious work." 



John Marshall was appointed Chief Justice of the 
Supreme Court of the United States by Mr. Adams, 
and assumed the duties of office February 4, 1801, 
just thirty days before Mr. Jefferson was inaugu- 
rated as President. Judge Marshall was a Feder- 
alist after the strictest sect and was hence the an- 
tithesis of Mr. Jefferson as to his opinion of the 
nature of our government; and there was a never- 
ending dispute between these two sons of Virginia, 
both of whom were men of the highest character for 
integrity, probity, ability, and patriotism. Each 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 131 

thoroughly distrusted the other as to his views of 
government, and each did his utmost to write the 
other down politically. 

The one act for which Mr. Jefferson never for- 
gave the leaders of the Federalists was the deliberate 
effort made in the last hours of Mr. Adams' admin- 
istration to create new Federal Judgeships and to fill 
the offices with the most uncompromising Federal- 
ists for life, to checkmate Mr. Jefferson in every 
way possible, and retain, if possible, that branch of 
the government under their control. Many com- 
missions for these new appointees were hurriedly 
filled out the night of March 3, 1801, and were 
found undelivered on March 4th, when Mr. Madi- 
son took charge of the office of Secretary of State. 
Proceedings were brought by Marbury and others 
against Mr. Madison for the possession of these 
commissions by original suit, in the nature of a 
mandamus, in the U. S. Supreme Court, and the 
opinion was delivered by Chief Justice Marshall. 
The Court very properly held that it had no juris- 
diction, and in strictness this would and should 
have ended the case. But the Chief Justice went 
further and, in an opinion of great clearness and 
masterly logic, undertook to and did lay down the 
rule of law that the Judiciary have the power and 
are in duty bound under the Constitution of the 
United States to declare an Act of Congress null 
and void, whenever it is in conflict with the Con- 
stitution. Mr. Jefferson combated this holding of 



132 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

the Court and always insisted that it was a dictum 
pure and simple. These issues involved the nature 
of the general government, Mr. Jefferson insisting 
upon a strict construction of the Constitution, and 
around this he organized the Republican party. 
Chief Justice Marshall gave the Constitution a lib- 
eral construction and enlarged the functions of the 
government under the implied powers and the Gen- 
eral Welfare Clause. Every decision extending the 
powers of the government was made a political issue 
by the Republicans at that time ; and the contest did 
not cease as long as Chief Justice Marshall was on 
the bench. Interesting and instructive accounts of 
these controversies will be found in Carson's " His- 
tery of the Supreme Court of the United States ", 
and Warren's " History of the American Bar ", as 
well as in Mr. Jefferson's correspondence. 

The contest between Mr. Jefferson and Chief Jus- 
tice Marshall never ceased during Mr. Jefferson's 
life, and it is needless to say that it was a battle 
between giants. The result was that Mr. Jefferson's 
ideas prevailed in the executive and legislative de- 
partments of the government for at least two gen- 
erations and the Federalist party was destroyed; 
on the other hand, the ideas of Chief Justice Mar- 
shall have prevailed in the Judicial department prac- 
tically to date. 

Prior to the appointment of Chief Justice 
Marshall the Supreme Court had attracted little or 
no attention and the Court had a small volume of 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 133 

litigation before it. In fact, both Jay and Ells- 
worth, his predecessors, had held political offices 
while serving as Chief Justice and both resigned 
because, as stated by Jay, he was convinced that 
the system was so defective that it would never ob- 
tain the energy, weight, and dignity which were 
essential to its affording due support to the govern- 
ment. 

During the service of Chief Justice Marshall, 
which continued for a period of thirty-four years, 
1,106 opinions were filed, of which 519 were de- 
livered by him. Sixty-two decisions were given 
upon constitutional questions, in thirty-six of which 
the opinion was by him, the remaining twenty-six 
being by one of seven associate Justices. Only one 
of Chief Justice Marshall's opinions on the consti- 
tution has ever been overruled. 

President Garfield pertinently said : " Marshall 
found the constitution paper; and he made it power. 
He found a skeleton, and he clothed it with flesh 
and blood." 

Warren's " History of the American Bar ", in 
commenting on these decisions, says : 

" In his five great cases — the Marbury case, the 
Cohens case, the McCulloch case, the Dartmouth 
College case, and the Sturgis case — Marshall did net 
cite a single decision as authority. His only light 
was the inward light of reason. He had ' no guides 
but the primal principles of truth and justice \ The 
decisions of no other eminent judges have so few 



i 3 4 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

citations of authorities. It used to be said of him 
that, when he had formed his conclusions, he would 
say to one of his colleagues, * There, Story, is the 
law. Now you must find the authorities/ Story 
himself said, ' When I examine a question, I go 
from headland to headland, from case to case; 
Marshall has a compass, puts out to sea, and goes 
directly to the result/ 

" In thirty years Marshall had transformed the 
Supreme Court, from a weak and uncertain body, 
hesitating to measure its strength against the pre- 
vailing jealousy of the federal power, into an ac- 
knowledged supreme authority." 

Hannis Taylor, in his splendid treatise on the 
" Origin and Growth of the American Constitu- 
tion ", asserts that Mr. Jefferson failed to appre- 
ciate the " importance of judicial power as a 
supreme arbitrating power ". With all due respect 
to such a high authority, it is submitted that this 
opinion is erroneous. Mr. Jefferson always insisted 
that the three departments of our government, the 
executive, legislative, and judicial, under the terms 
of the Constitution, were created as separate, dis- 
tinct, and independent departments, and that each 
was supreme within its own sphere ; and that, in the 
nature of things, neither had the power or right to 
control the other, and that each was charged with 
the duty and responsibility to act for itself, subject 
to accountability to the power that created them. 
This view he expressed fully, in speaking of the 
Sedition Laws, as follows : 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 135 

11 You seemed to think it devolved on the Judges 
to decide on the validity of the sedition law. But 
nothing in the Constitution has given them a right 
to decide for the executive, more than to the execu- 
tive to decide for them. Both magistracies are 
equally independent in the sphere of action assigned 
to them. The Judges, believing the law constitu- 
tional, had a right to pass a sentence of fine and 
imprisonment , because the power was placed in 
their hands by the Constitution. But the executive, 
believing the law to be unconstitutional, were bound 
to remit the execution of it; because that power has 
been confided to them by the Constitution. That 
instrument meant that its co-ordinate branches 
should be checks on each other. But the opinion 
which gives to the Judges the right to decide what 
laws are constitutional, and what not, not only for 
themselves in their own sphere of action, but for 
the legislature and executive also in their spheres, 
would make the judiciary a despotic branch. 

" If this opinion be sound, then indeed is our 
Constitution a complete felo de se. For intending to 
establish three department, co-ordinate and inde- 
pendent, that they might check and balance one an- 
other, it has given, according to this opinion, to one 
of them alone, the right to prescribe rules for the 
government of the others, and to that one too, which 
is unelected by, and independent of the nation. For 
experience has already shown that the impeachment 
it has provided is not even a scarecrow; that such 
opinions as the ones you combat, sent cautiously out, 
as you observe also, by detachment, not belonging to 
the case often, but sought for out of it, as if to 
rally the public opinion beforehand to their views, 
and to indicate the line they are to walk in, have 



136 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

been so quietly passed over as never to have excited 
animadversion, even in a speech of anyone of the 
body entrusted with impeachment. The Constitu- 
tion, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in 
the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist 
and shape into any form they please. It should be 
remembered as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, 
that whatever power in any government is inde- 
pendent, is absolute also; in theory only, at first, 
while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice, 
as fast as that relaxes. Independence can be trusted 
nowhere but with the people in mass. They are 
inherently independent of all but moral law." 

Mr. Jefferson felt deep solicitude as to the 
dangers which he anticipated might accrue from 
this " Supreme Arbitrating Power ", which was 
being gradually developed to checkmate and curb 
the power of the people through the other depart- 
ments of government. In his Autobiography, as 
late as 1821, he expressed his final opinion in the 
following language : 

" But there was another amendment, of which 
none of us thought at the time, and in the omission 
of which, lurks the germ that is to destroy this 
happy combination of National powers in the gen- 
eral government, for matters of National concern, 
and independent powers in the States, for what con- 
cerns the States severally. In England, it was a 
great point gained at the Revolution, that the com- 
missions of the Judges, which had hitherto been 
during pleasure, should thenceforth be made dur- 
ing good behavior. A Judiciary, dependent on the 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 137 



will of the King, had proved itself the most oppres- 
sive of all tools, in the hands of that Magistrate. 
Nothing, then, could be more salutary, than a 
change there, to the tenure of good behavior; and 
the question of good behavior, left to the vote of a 
simple majority in the two Houses of Parliament. 
Before the Revolution, we were all good English 
Whigs, cordial in their free principles, and in their 
jealousies of their Executive Magistrate. These 
jealousies are very apparent, in all our State Consti- 
tutions; and, in the General Government in this in- 
stance, we have gone even beyond the English cau- 
tion, by requiring a vote of two-thirds, in one of the 
Houses, for removing a Judge; a vote so impossible 
where any defense is made, before men of ordinary 
prejudices and passions, that our Judges are ef- 
fectually independent of the nation. But this ought 
not to be. I would not, indeed, make them de- 
pendent on the Executive authority, as they for- 
merly were in England ; but I deem it indispensable 
to the continuance of this government, that they 
should be submitted to some practical and impartial 
control; and that this, to be impartial, must be com- 
pounded of a mixture of State and Federal authori- 
ties. It is not enough that honest men are appointed 
Judges. All know the influence of interest on the 
mind of men, and how unconsciously his judgment 
is warped by that influence. To this bias add that 
of the esprit de corps, of their peculiar maxim and 
creed, that ' it is the office of a good Judge to en- 
large his jurisdiction \ and the absence of responsi- 
bility; and how can we expect impartial decision be- 
tween the General government, of which they are 
themselves so eminent a part, and an individual 
State, from which they have nothing to hope or 



138 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

fear? We have seen, too, that contrary to all cor- 
rect example, they are in the habit of going out of 
the question before them, to throw an anchor ahead, 
and grapple further hold for future advances of 
power. They are then, in fact, the corps of sappers 
and miners, steadily working to undermine the inde- 
pendent rights of the States, and to consolidate all 
power in the hands of that government in which 
they have so important a freehold estate. But it is 
not by the consolidation, or concentration of powers, 
but by their distribution, that good government is 
effected. Were not this great country already di- 
vided into States, that division must be made, that 
each might do for itself what concerns itself di- 
rectly, and what it can so much better do than a 
distant authority. Every State again is divided into 
counties, each to take care of what lies within its 
local bounds; each county again into townships or 
wards, to manage minuter details; and every ward 
into farms, to be governed each by its individual 
proprietor. Were we directed from Washington 
when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon 
want bread. It is by this partition of cares, de- 
scending in graduation from general to particular, 
that the mass of human affairs may be best man- 
aged, for the good and prosperity of all. I repeat, 
that I do not charge the Judges with wilful and in- 
tentional error; but honest error must be arrested, 
where its toleration leads to public ruin. As, for 
the safety of society, we commit honest maniacs to 
Bedlam, so judges should be withdrawn from their 
bench, whose erroneous biases are leading us to dis- 
solution. It may, indeed, injure them in fame or 
in fortune; but it saves the Republic, which is the 
first and supreme law." 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 139 

There is another opinion expressed by Mr. 
Taylor in regard to Mr. Jefferson, which does 
a gross injustice to his memory, to the effect that 
Mr. Jefferson's teachings were the cause of the War 
between the States in 1861-1865. The right of a 
State to secede did not originate with Mr. Jefferson 
and it was never seriously disputed by any party 
until the debate between Webster and Hayne. The 
question in each instance, where it was threatened, 
was not as to the abstract right, but as to the expedi- 
ency of it. 

It is needless to trace the history of the Hartford 
Convention and other occasions when this theory 
was set forth. Mr. Jefferson, in common with all 
of the early writers on the subject, believed in the 
doctrine, but he was as a practical statesman at all 
times opposed to it, except in extreme cases, and 
after repeated abuses making it absolutely necessary 
to preserve liberty; and so expressed himself, as is 
shown by the following excerpts from his writings: 

11 But if on a temporary superiority of the one 
party, the other is to resort to a scission of the 
Union, no federal government can ever exist. . . . 

" If the game is sometimes against us at home 
we must have patience till luck turns, and then we 
shall have an opportunity of winning back the prin- 
ciples we have lost. For this is a game where prin- 
ciples are at stake. " 

In speaking of the Hartford Convention, he said: 



140 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

" We might safely give them leave to go through 
the United States recruiting their ranks, and I am 
satisfied they could not raise one single regiment 
(gambling merchants and silk stocking clerks ex- 
cepted) who would support them in any effort to 
separate from the Union. The cement of this 
Union is in the heart blood of every American. I 
do not believe there is on earth a government estab- 
lished on so immovable a basis. Let them, in any 
State, even in Massachusetts itself, raise the stand- 
ard of separation, and its citizens will rise in mass 
and do justice themselves on their own incen- 
diaries. . . . 

" No event more than this has shown the placid 
character of our Constitution. Under any other 
their treasons would have been punished by the 
halter. We let them live as laughing stocks for the 
world, and punish them by the torments of eternal 
contempt." 

It most assuredly cannot be argued that Mr. Jef- 
ferson would have been willing to involve this 
country in a fratricidal war over the question of 
negro slavery, after he had throughout his entire 
public life consistently favored the emancipation of 
the black race. The truth of the matter is that the 
Declaration of Independence, and his writings on 
the subject of slavery, were the most powerful 
weapons Mr. Lincoln used in accomplishing the 
freedom of slaves — a burden that was so much upon 
the mind and conscience of Mr. Jefferson during his 
long and useful life. 

The celebrated Kentucky and Virginia resolutions 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 141 

were used by Mr. Jefferson to check, as far as pos- 
sible, the extension of doctrines favorable to a 
strong centralized Government, especially the Alien 
and Sedition Laws; but Mr. Jefferson was a prac- 
tical statesman and in the Virginia resolutions he 
showed distinctly how such questions should be 
settled, viz: by amending the Constitution. The 
supposition that Mr. Jefferson was not a progressive 
statesman and that he would not have yielded any 
mere theory, short of the great and fundamental 
one that all government is based on the consent of 
the governed, is refuted by his own writings, as is 
shown by the following : 

" Some men look at constitutions with sancti- 
monious reverence, and deem them like the ark of 
the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They 
ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom 
more than human, and suppose what they did to 
be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I 
belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well 
of its country. It was very like the present, but 
without the experience of the present; and forty 
years of experience in government is worth a cen- 
tury of book reading: and this they would say them- 
selves were they to rise from the dead. We had 
not yet penetrated to the mother principle, that 
1 governments are republican only in proportion as 
they embody the will of their people, and execute 
it \ Hence our first constitutions had really no 
leading principle in them. Though we may say with 
confidence, that the worst of the American constitu- 
tions is better than the best which ever existed be- 



142 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

fore in any other country, and they are wonderfully 
perfect for a first essay, yet every human essay 
must have defects. It will remain therefore to those 
now coming on the stage of public affairs to per- 
fect what has been so well begun by those going off 
it. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and 
untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think 
moderate imperfections had better be borne with; 
because, when once known, we accommodate our- 
selves to them, and find practical means of correct- 
ing their ill defects. But I know, also, that laws 
and institutions must go hand in hand with the 
progress of the human mind. As that becomes more 
developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are 
made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opin- 
ions change with the change of circumstances, in- 
stitutions must advance also, and keep pace with the 
times. We might as w r ell require a man to wear 
still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civi- 
lized society to remain ever under the regimen of 
their barbarous ancestors. It is this preposterous 
idea which has lately deluged Europe in blood. 
Their monarchs, instead of wisely yielding to the 
gradual changes of circumstances, of favoring pro- 
gressive accommodation to progressive improve- 
ment, have clung to old abuses, entrenched them- 
selves behind steady habits, and obliged their sub- 
jects to seek through blood and violence, rash and 
ruinous innovations, which, had they been referred 
to the peaceful deliberations and collected wisdom 
of the nation, would have been put into acceptable 
and salutary forms. Let us follow no such 
examples, nor weakly believe that one generation is 
not as capable as another of taking care of itself, 
and of ordering its own affairs. Let us avail our- 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 143 

selves of our reason and experience, to correct the 
crude essays of our first and unexperienced, 
although wise, virtuous, and well-meaning councils. 
11 . . .If this avenue be shut to the call of suf- 
ferance, it will make itself heard through that of 
force, and we shall go on, as other nations are 
doing, in the endless circle of oppression, rebellion, 
reformation; and oppression, rebellion, reformation, 
again ; and so on, for ever." 

In concluding this brief and imperfect sketch of 
the main contributions of Mr. Jefferson to the cause 
of liberty in this country it has been necessary to 
omit many of his great practical creations, such as 
the University of Virginia, and his life work in 
helping to spread freedom of thought, freedom of 
religion, tolerance to all nations, and the many 
exemplifications of his patience, under most severe 
trials, when he was made a victim of a licentious 
press ; as well as his sacrifice of his own considerable 
fortune for those days, peace of mind, love of learn- 
ing, family and friendships for the cause he loved 
so devotedly. 

The resolution of congratulation voted Mr. Jef- 
ferson by the General Assembly of Virginia upon 
his retiring from the Presidency, summarizes the 
achievements of his administration, as follows : 

"We have to thank you for the model of an 
administration conducted on the purest principles of 
republicanism; for pomp and state laid aside; pa- 
tronage discarded; internal taxes abolished; a host 



144 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

of superfluous officers disbanded; the monarchic 
maxim that l a national debt is a national blessing p 
renounced, and more than thirty-three millions of 
our debt discharged; the native right to nearly one 
hundred millions of acres of our national domain 
extinguished; and without the guilt or calamities of 
conquest, a vast and fertile region added to our 
country, far more extensive than her original pos- 
sessions, bringing along with it the Mississippi and 
the port of Orleans, the trade of the West to the 
Pacific Ocean, and in the intrinsic value of the land 
itself, a source of permanent and almost inex- 
haustible revenue. These are points in your admin- 
istration which the historian will not fail to seize, 
to expand, and teach posterity to dwell upon with 
delight. Nor will he forget our peace with the 
civilized world, preserved through a season of un- 
common difficulty and trial ; the good will cultivated 
with the unfortunate aborigines of our country, and 
the civilization humanely extended among them ; the 
lesson taught the inhabitants of the coast of Bar- 
bary; that we have the means of chastising their 
piratical encroachments, and awing them into jus- 
tice; and that theme, on which, above all others, the 
historic genius will hang with rapture, the liberty of 
speech and of the press, preserved inviolate, without 
which genius and science are given to man in vain." 

It is only fitting that a few extracts from the 
eloquent tribute of Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, 
and a letter of Mr. Lincoln should be added. 
Senator Hoar said : 

" If we want a sure proof of Thomas Jefferson's 
greatness it will be found in the fact that men of 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 145 

every variety of political opinion, however far 
asunder, find confirmation of their doctrine in him. 
Every party in this country today reckons Jefferson 
as its patron saint. In my youth the political Aboli- 
tionists made appeals to Jefferson the burden of 
their song. In the late discussion, which rent the 
country, about the Philippine Islands, one side 
quoted what Mr. Jefferson said in the Declaration 
of Independence, and the other what they thought 
he did, in the acquisition of Louisiana. I do not 
know of any other American of whom this is true, 
unless it be that the different schools of theology 
and ethics seem inclined to do the same thing just 
now as to Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

11 1 can think of no other man in history, like Jef- 
ferson, leader as he was of two Revolutions and 
founder of a political party; one of which accom- 
plished the independence of his country from a for- 
eign yoke, the other overthrew by peaceful means 
the party at home which had been founded by 
Washington, and his great companions and coun- 
selors, of whom such a thing as this can be said. 
Every political sect finds its political doctrine in 
Jefferson, almost as every religious sect finds its 
doctrine in the Saviour of mankind. . . . 

" The mighty figure of Thomas Jefferson comes 
down in history with the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence in one hand, and the title deed of Louisiana in 
the other. He acquired for his country a territory 
of 1,171,931 square miles, now fifteen States, to be 
hereafter the seat and center of empire certainly of 
this continent, and, as we confidently believe, of the 
world. Yet I believe, in the estimate of mankind, 
that achievement is insignificant compared with the 
other. The author of the Declaration of Indepen- 



146 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

dence stands in human history as the foremost man 
who ever lived, whose influence has led men to 
govern themselves in the conduct of States by spir- 
itual laws. That was Jefferson's mission — to teach 
spiritual laws. Observe that I say spiritual laws, 
not spiritual truths merely, not formulae to be as- 
sented to, but rules of life to be governed by and 
acted upon. 

" It was due to Jefferson that our fathers laid 
deep the foundation of the State in the moral law. 
They first set to mankind the great example, and 
exhibited the mighty spectacle — the sublimest spec- 
tacle in the universe — of a great and free people 
voluntarily governing itself by a law higher than 
its own desire. 

" He was Secretary of State. He was Governor 
of Virginia. He was Minister to France. He was 
Vice President. He was President. He acquired 
Louisiana. Yet, when he gave direction for his 
own epitaph, he cared to have none of these things 
remembered. The simple inscription on his tomb 
at Monticello sums up in his language as no other 
orator can, the character and career of Thomas Jef- 
ferson. 

" ' Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of 
the Declaration of American Independence, of the 
Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and 
father of the University of Virginia/ 

" Political freedom, religious freedom, and the 
education that makes these possible and safe were 
the ends for which he strove, the monuments by 
which he desired to be remembered. Neither power, 
nor honor, nor office, nor popularity, nor fame 
entered into the mighty heart that stirred that 
mighty soul. . . . 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 147 

" Thomas Jeffereson was one of those men who 
can differ from hemispheres, from generations, 
from administrations and from centuries with the 
perfect assurance that on any question of liberty 
and righteousness, if the opinion of Thomas Jef- 
ferson stands on one side and the opinion of man- 
kind on the other, the world will, in the end, come 
around to his way of thinking/' 

Lincoln's tribute to jefferson 

Springfield, 111., April 6, 1859. 
To H. L. Pierce and others. 
Gentlemen: — 

Your kind note inviting me to attend a festival 
in Boston, on the 28th instant, in honor of the birth- 
day of Thomas Jefferson, was duly received. My 
engagements are such that I cannot come. 

Bearing in mind that about seventy years ago two 
great political parties w r ere first formed in this coun- 
try, that Thomas Jefferson was the head of one of 
them and Boston the headquarters of the other, it 
is both curious and interesting that those supposed 
to descend politically from the party opposed to Jef- 
ferson should now be celebrating his birthday in 
their own original seat and empire, while those 
claiming political descent from him have nearly 
ceased to breathe his name everywhere. 

Remembering, too, that the Jefferson party 
formed upon the supposed superior devotion to the 
personal rights of men, holding the rights of prop- 
erty to be secondary only and greatly inferior, and 
assuming that the so-called democracy of today are 
the Jefferson, and their opponents the anti-Jefferson 
party; it will be equally interesting to note how 



148 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

completely the two have changed hands as to the 
principle upon which they were originally supposed 
to be divided. The democracy of today hold the 
liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when 
in conflict with another man's right of property; 
Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man 
and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before 
the dollar. 

I remember being very much amused at seeing 
two partially intoxicated men engaged in a fight 
with their greatcoats on, which fight, after a long 
and rather harmless contest, ended in each having 
fought himself out of his own coat and into that of 
the other. If the two leading parties of this day are 
really identical with the two in the days of Jef- 
ferson and Adams they have performed the same 
feat as the two drunken men. 

But soberly, it is now no child's play to save the 
principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this 
nation. One would state with great confidence that 
he could convince any sane child that the simpler 
propositions of Euclid are true, but nevertheless he 
would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the 
definitions and axioms. 

The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and 
axioms of free society and yet they are denied and 
evaded, with no small show of success. One dash- 
ingly calls them " glittering generalities ". Another 
bluntly calls them " self-evident lies " and others 
insidiously argue that they apply to " superior 
races ". These expressions, differing in form, are 
identical in object and effect — the supplanting the 
principles of free government, and restoring those 
of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would 
delight a convocation of crowned heads plotting 



JEFFERSON'S CONTRIBUTIONS 149 

against the people. They are the vanguard, the 
miners and sappers of returning despotism. We 
must repulse them, or they will subjugate us. This 
is a world of compensation; and he would be no 
slave must consent to have no slave. Those who 
deny freedom to others deserve it not for them- 
selves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it. 
All honor to Jefferson — to the man, who in 
the concrete pressure of a struggle for na- 
tional independence by a single people, had 
the coolness, forecaste, and sagacity to intro- 
duce into a merely revolutionary document 

AN ABSTRACT TRUTH, APPLICABLE TO ALL MEN AND 
ALL TIMES, AND SO EMBALM IT THERE THAT TODAY 
AND IN ALL COMING DAYS IT SHALL BE A REBUKE 
AND A STUMBLING-BLOCK TO THE VERY HARBINGERS 
OF RE-APPEARING TYRANNY AND OPPRESSION. YOUR 
OBEDIENT SERVANT. 

A. Lincoln. 



CHAPTER IV. 

GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF CIVIL AND RE- 
LIGIOUS LIBERTY IN MODERN TIMES 

" That * All governments derive their just powers 
from the consent of the governed ' is but a corollary 
from the divine injunction ' All things whatsoever 
ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so 
to them \ Together these two great truths embrace 
all the rights and duties of mankind.' ' — Vest. 

From what has been said in former chapters, it 
can readily be seen that liberty, like law, has had a 
slow and checkered growth, and that the former, if 
not the latter, has reached its highest and greatest 
development in the United States; and that there 
has been an intimate, though at times obscure, con- 
nection between law and religion. 

Law and religion have both had their greatest and 
noblest developments under the governments which 
have allowed the greatest freedom to the individual 
in all of his relations. In government, there are two 
extremes which are to be avoided : tyranny, on the 
one hand, representing the centripetal forces; and 
anarchy, on the other, representing the centrifugal 
forces. In religion, the centripetal forces are bot- 

150 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 151 

tomed on selfishness, while the centrifugal forces 
are represented by the loftiest conception of the 
Creator, love; for " God is love ". There are cer- 
tain fixed truths in both, which are the funda- 
mentals to the growth of liberty. Indeed, no free 
government can exist without the recognition of 
these truths. In religious freedom, we find St. 
Augustine pitted against Pelagius elaborating a 
metaphysical scheme of free agency, which implied 
an opposing one of necessity. In later centuries, 
these ideas were disputed and elaborated by the 
Arminians and the Calvinists. 

As has been said by John Fiske : " In the spiritual 
life of modern times there have been two great up- 
lifting tendencies, one derived from the Bible, and 
the other from the study of Greek. The former 
tendency produced the Protestant Reformation, the 
latter produced what we call the Renaissance or 
New Birth of Art and Science. ,, 

No more interesting, instructive, and thrilling 
chapters in history can be found than in tracing the 
spiritual growth of what may be justly called the 
Puritan nations of the world who took the Bible 
as the guide of their lives, beginning with the Jews, 
when Abraham, in 192 1 B.C., was called from Ur 
of the Chaldees to the advent of the Christian era 
when a new order of living and higher ideals 
for all humanity were inaugurated. Not only are 
principles of sound morality inculcated for the indi- 
vidual, but new and nobler conceptions of the dig- 



152 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

nity of man and the true granduer of Nations are 
plainly taught, especially in the New Testament. 
The fundamental principles of civil and religious 
liberty are plainly taught in the Bible, and religious 
liberty has uniformly preceded civil liberty, but they 
have more generally, since the close of the eight- 
eenth century, gone hand in hand. 

Individualism, which is confessedly the founda- 
tion of all civil and religious liberty, had its begin- 
ing, in the modern acceptation of the term, at 
Geneva, where the school led by Calvin, a learned 
Frenchman, first set forth the modern conception 
of the true relation of man to God, and threw off 
the yoke of bondage to traditions based on igno- 
rance and superstition. 

The story of the struggles for civil and religious 
liberty in Scotland, Holland, England, the United 
States of America, and France, has been written by 
the greatest historians of these countries, and it is 
needless to do more than to refer to the fact that 
the student of government should learn to discrimi- 
nate between the true and the false in studying his- 
tory, as well as in other matters ; more especially as 
the tyrant in power with favors to bestow on his 
favorites has ever found apologists even among the 
so-called great. So great a man as Dr. Samuel 
Johnson, after he had accepted a small pension from 
George III, wrote his almost forgotten pamphlet, 
entitled " Taxation no Tyranny ", and did not hesi- 
tate to brand the colonists as scoundrels. 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 153 

The underlying truths of civil and religious free- 
dom, as before stated, are few and simple and they 
are as old as the race, because they are implanted in 
the bosom of man. Truth, righteousness, and jus- 
tice are nowhere so admirably stated as in the Bible; 
and as has been so eloquently stated by John Milton, 
Edmund Burke, and Thomas Jefferson, all that 
truth needs is a free forum. The arguments for un- 
licensed printing made by Milton in his " Areo- 
pagitica" are based on the teachings of the Bible 
and Greek and Roman history, and are un- 
answerable. Mr. Jefferson sets forth most suc- 
cinctly the true grounds for religious freedom in 
the preamble to his statute for religious freedom in 
Virginia, and the final thought is the gist of the 
whole argument, viz.: "that truth is great and will 
prevail if left to herself; and that she is the proper 
and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to 
fear from the conflict unless, by human interposi- 
tion, disarmed of her natural weapons, free 
argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dan- 
gerous when it is permitted freely to contradict 
them." 

The same idea in similar language is found in the 
Old Testament, in the Vulgate : " Great is truth and 
it prevails," and in the King James version : " Great 
is truth and mighty above all things." 

Gamaliel's advice to the council in regard to the 
preaching of Peter and the other Apostles, as re- 
corded in the Acts, V, 38-39, is most apposite, viz. : 



154 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

" Refrain from these men, and let them alone; for if 
this council or this work be of men, it will come to 
naught; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, 
lest haply ye be found even to fight against God. ,, 

The divine nature of truth is also taught by the 
greatest poets of all nations and especially by the 
Greek dramatists, Euripides and Sophocles, the lat- 
ter asserting in Antigone that the truth is always 
right. 

In the United States the two most dominant 
types, and, in fact, the controlling factors in formu- 
lating our government, were the Puritans of New 
England, and their descendants in the north and 
northwest, and the Scotch-Irish in Virginia, the 
Carolinas and Georgia, and their descendants in the 
south and southwest; and both of these were thor- 
oughly trained and drilled in the Bible and drew 
their ideas of freedom from that source. They 
were also great devotees to education, and as pointed 
out by Burke, Bancroft, Buckle, and other histor- 
ians, the doctrines which in England and America 
are called Calvinistic have always been connected 
with a democratic spirit. 

The same has also been true of the republics of 
Switzerland and Holland. Carlyle says that "the 
spiritual will always body itself forth in the tem- 
poral history of men ". 

This great truth has most assuredly been exempli- 
fied in the case of the Genevan Church, more espe- 
cially in the history of Holland, Scotland, France, 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 155 

England, and America. The highest tribute to the 
faith of these great people who have made the Bible 
the standard of their lives and government, is found 
in the character of the men they have produced, as 
well as in the free governments and powerful and 
great nations which they have established. 

Among the Jews we find in their early history 
such characters as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, 
Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, Isaiah, and others; 
and they established the first democracy in the world 
during the times of Moses. The Jews w r ere also 
idealists and great educators, and furnished the men 
of brains and sound moral character who could 
and did grasp the immortal truths taught by Jesus, 
whose life and teachings changed the currents of 
history and gave the world truths and ideals of 
right, justice and freedom which have produced the 
greatest nations of all times, and in grateful recog- 
nition of the manifold blessings flowing therefrom, 
they have altogether assumed the name of a Chris- 
tian civilization. 

In an admirable paper written by Joshua W. 
Caldwell, late of Knoxville, Tennessee, entitled 
" Puritan Races and Puritan Living ", these ideas 
are splendidly developed, and he recounts in glow- 
ing language the part taken by the Calvinists in the 
achievement of civil and religious liberty in Holland, 
Scotland, England, France, and the United States. 
He properly calls all those people who made the 
Bible their guide in life and were animated with the 



156 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

ethical impulse and optimistic idealism found in its 
pages, Calvinists and Puritans, and shows that they 
were democrats in the broadest and best sense of 
that much abused word. Speaking of Holland, he 
says: 

" There is no country of modern times whose his- 
tory contains more to justify pride than Holland. 
-This little people led the way to the enlightenment 
of modern Europe. The Dutch were the first real 
bankers in Europe ; the first to understand the prin- 
ciples of modern economy; the first to systematize 
trade; the first to establish a satisfactory system of 
exchange; the first to realize that in commerce the 
thing most essential is honesty; the first to develop 
agriculture ; and among the first to attain excellence 
in art. They were the leaders of modern democ- 
racy. They made the first written constitution to 
bind men together in free community. They made 
the grandest fight for liberty that is recorded in 
human history. The struggle between the Nether- 
lands and Spain is, I believe, the most tragic, the 
most cruel and relentless on the one hand, the most 
heroic and admirable on the other, that ever oc- 
curred. And this was a struggle of a handful of 
Puritans against the dominant world-power. The 
Dutch revival was a Puritan revival. The Dutch 
civilization was a Puritan civilization." 

Motley, another dstinguished American historian, 
has written the best history of these remarkable 
people in his " Dutch Republic ". 

Caldwell also gives brief sketches of the English 
Puritans, the French Huguenots, the Scotch Cove- 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 157 

nanters, and traces the influx of these people into 
North America and shows that the New England 
Puritans, and the Scotch-Irish of the Southern 
Colonies became the dominant and controlling 
factors in the establishment of our government. 
The following extracts show the trend of his argu- 
ment: 

" Turning now to the Scotch Puritan movement, 
we find it essentially an uprising of the people; it 
is typified and represented by its great leader, John 
Knox. He was a man of the people and fitted to 
be a leader of the people. His courage knew no 
limits. He withstood persecution with unflinching 
fortitude, served as a galley-slave for the sake of 
his convictions, and, recovering his freedom, re- 
sumed his work with unabated zeal and energy. 
The fascinating Queen of Scots had no charms for 
him, and he did not hesitate to denounce her sins to 
her face. As strong in his convictions as it is pos- 
sible to be, he approved, in his zeal, things that we, 
in our sober judgment, must condemn. But the 
Scotch covenant was a covenant of righteousness. 

" Andrew Melville, who succeeded Knox as 
leader, was the real founder of the University sys- 
tem of Scotland. The authors and scholars who 
made the Scotch name illustrious in the eighteenth 
century were mainly Covenanters, and the intellec- 
tual movement which inspired them was of Cove- 
nanter origin. In Scotland, as in England, and in 
Holland, the cause of enlightenment and of liberty 
rested for a time mainly on the Puritans. The 
Scotch intellect owes its development and its splen- 
did achievements to the Covenanter impulse. 



158 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

" In the course of time a great colony of Cove- 
nanters was planted in the north of Ireland. These 
people found their new home a waste, but in a few 
years made it one of the most productive and at- 
tractive regions in Europe. And to this day Ulster 
thrives as no other part of Ireland. The political 
and religious opinions of these Scotch-Irishmen and 
their posterity aroused persecution. They resisted 
strenuously, but in the end many sought refuge and 
freedom in the wilds of America, whither presently 
we shall follow them. 

" But we first turn to another Puritan exodus. 
It was in the year 1621, that the first English Puri- 
tans came to America. In a few years, forty thou- 
sand had come. They were ' a picked company \ 
They were of good repute, and nearly all fairly edu- 
cated. About the middle of the second quarter of 
the eighteenth century the Scotch-Irish began their 
migration to America. Landing mainly at Phila- 
delphia, and at Charleston, they sought homes on 
the frontier, especially in the Southwest, and led 
the way to the conquest and civilization of all that 
region. According to our distinguished townsman, 
Judge Temple, there were not less than six hundred 
thousand Scotch-Irishmen in America in 1776. 
Thus the Covenanters and the Puritans made nearly 
one-half of the white population of the colonies. 
Add to these the people of Dutch descent in the 
middle colonies, and it is reasonably certain that 
half the people were of Puritan extraction. 

" The Puritans were democrats. They believed 
in equality, and hated every form of oppression. 
Democracy is a corollary of the Puritan faith. That 
the Scotch Covenanters were the most pronounced 
and persistent in their democracy, I believe to be 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 159 

true. Buckle says of Calvinism: ' It is an inter- 
esting fact that the doctrines which in England have 
been called " Calvinistic " have always been con- 
nected with a democratic spirit.' Fiske refers to 
John Calvin as the spiritual father of William of 
Orange, Coligny, and Oliver Cromwell. 

11 When independence had been established, these 
two races — the English and Scotch Puritans — were 
dominant influences in their respective sections. At 
the present time there are fifteen million descend- 
ants of the New England Puritans in this country; 
and I believe there are as many descendants of the 
Scotch-Irish. That is to say, that one-half of our 
people have in their veins one strain or the other 
of the Puritan blood. Consider for a moment what 
the Puritans have accomplished in America. The 
great lighthouses of education, Harvard and Yale, 
were begun by them, and in the dawn of history. 
The rich libraries of the East have been gathered, 
and popular education established and constantly ad- 
vanced. The literature of America belongs to New 
England. If we omit from our annals the names of 
Edwards, Channing, Motley, Bancroft, Prescott, 
Parkman, Lowell, Longfellow 7 , Whittier, Thoreau, 
Emerson, Hawthorne, how little remains ! How ill 
could our political history afford to lose Samuel and 
John Adams, Otis, Webster, Choate, Sumner, Wil- 
son, Hale, Hamlin, Pierce! And how many names 
of the history of the Northwest are Puritan! Im- 
mense tracts, as for instance the Western Reserve of 
Ohio, were peopled, almost exclusively, from New 
England. For a long time the East has controlled 
the policy of the country by the aid of her colonies 
in the West. Wherever the American free school 
system may have originated, it was developed and 



160 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

improved mostly in New England. The average of 
education and of intelligence has always been higher 
there than in any other part of our country. That 
the Covenanters, if settled in compact communities, 
would have equaled the New Englanders in this re- 
spect, I do not doubt, for stauncher friends of edu- 
cation never lived ; but conditions in the South and 
West were such that the Scotch-Irish schools could 
only be established in widely separated communities. 
By thus training the minds as it trained the morals 
of its people, New England became not only the 
most intelligent, but the most influential portion of 
our country. She produced the greatest of our 
writers; and fifty years ago had grown in intellect 
so that she was able and bold enough to make a 
declaration of intellectual independence. 

" If we turn to the Covenanters, we find them 
doing in the South, so far as conditions have per- 
mitted, the same things that the New Englanders 
did in the North. In Scotland and in Ireland they 
had been an educated people. All their preachers 
had been school teachers. In America, they were no 
less the friends of education. The memorials of the 
Scotch Presbyterian preachers are found in almost 
every institution of learning in the Southwest. 
Princetown was their first great work; and as they 
came south and west their landmarks were the log 
colleges that sent to Princetown a steady stream of 
sturdy, pious men, who returned to the wilderness 
to civilize it. These Presbyterians founded Wash- 
ington and Lee University, Washington College, the 
University of Tennessee (or its germ, Blount Col- 
lege), the Southwestern Presbyterian University, 
Maryville College, Davidson College, Transylvania 
University, Greeneville College, Tusculum College, 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 161 

and a multitude more. Wherever they went, they 
carried knowledge and religion. In our immediate 
neighborhood they furnished such teachers as Doak, 
Carrick, Craighead, and Anderson. In the catalog 
of the great men of our nation are the Scotch-Irish- 
men, — Jefferson, Jackson, Polk, Lincoln, Calhoun, 
Sam Houston, Patrick Henry, Hugh Lawson 
White, the Breckenridges, McKinley, Bryan, the 
Prestons, and the great inventors, Morse, Fulton, 
and McCormick, 

" The Scotch-Irish led the way to the settlement 
of the States of Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, 
Texas, Arkansas, and much of Ohio, Indiana, and 
Illinois. They possessed also Western Pennsyl- 
vania, the valley of Virginia, and western North 
Carolina, and found a foothold in every western and 
southern state. Wherever they went it was as Pres- 
byterians, until, early in this century, the Baptists 
and Methodists had made heavy inroads upon them. 
At the present time, probably the majority of the 
Scotch-Irish are not of the old communion. But 
whether they be Baptists, Methodists, or Cumber- 
land Presbyterians, the race characteristics, as de- 
veloped in the old Covenanters, are still strong and 
prominent, and the Methodists and the Baptists are 
just as much Puritan Bible lovers as the Presby- 
terians. 

" And so we have in America fifteen million of 
English Puritan stock, fifteen millions of the Cove- 
nanter stock, and I should say at least two million 
of the Dutch and Huguenot stock together. These 
races have, so to speak, projected solid bodies of 
influence into affairs, and have thus afforded large 
and indisputable proofs that it pays, mentally, 
morally, socially, and financially, to live according 



162 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

to the Puritan plan. They are health, wealthy, and 
wise. What they are they became by right living." 

There is no disputing the fact that climate, food, 
soil, and the general aspects of nature of these coun- 
tries have had a great deal to do with the growth 
and development of laws and institutions favorable 
to freedom in all of its manifold relations, as has 
been so forcibly stated by Buckle. There is also no 
disputing the fact that all democratic governments 
in modern times have had a common origin. No 
greater contributions have been made to the cause 
of education in matters pertaining to law and the 
cause of freedom than the monumental works of 
Stubbs and Freeman, and the study of the great 
documents illustrative of English history which has 
resulted therefrom. The memorable descriptions 
given by Mr. Freeman of the assemblies of the 
Swiss Cantons of Uri and Appenzell, in the opening 
chapter of his small volume entitled " The Growth 
of the English Constitution from the Earliest 
Times " are vivid and realistic pictures of priceless 
value, as a concrete illustration of what self-govern- 
ment means, and no process of abstract reasoning 
can visualize them. He might, however, have wit- 
nessed the same scenes in Massachusetts or any of 
the New England States. 

The government established in 1772 on the 
Watauga River in the wilderness west of the Alle- 
ghanies, now in Tennessee, is a better illustration of 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 163 

self-government, however, than either of these, for 
the reason that there was no superior restraining 
power over these people. They organized and con- 
ducted a successful government for some time with- 
out seeking to declare themselves independent of 
Great Britain or the Colonies of Virginia and 
North Carolina, near whose borders they were 
located. 

This Watauga colony was composed chiefly of 
Scotch-Irish who in the main were Presbyterians, 
and their capacity for self-government has been the 
subject of encomiums at the hands of Bancroft, 
Roosevelt, and Caldwell. Caldwell, in his " Consti- 
tutional History of Tennessee", says: 

" It has been called the ' first free and indepen- 
dent government in America ', and in a sense this is 
true. It was the first of the series of temporary, 
self-dependent, and thoroughly American Govern- 
ments established on our western frontier in the 
Revolutionary period. The Tennessee historians, as 
a rule, are content to say that its Compact was the 
first written Constitution west of the Alleghanies, 
and Roosevelt concurs in this and adds that it was 
the first free and independent government estab- 
lished on this continent by men of American birth. 

"In 1772, this country was almost ready for 
revolution. The growth of the spirit of indepen- 
dence had been demonstrated by the persistent as- 
sertion of the right of self-taxation and by such oc- 
currences as the Tryon rebellion in North Carolina. 
Owing, as it appears, to purely fortuitous circum- 
stances the Watauga settlers were the first to em- 



164 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

body the principles of American democracy in ac- 
tual institutions. It may be claimed, justly, that 
they were the best prepared for this step as well as 
compelled to it by their conditions, but, however 
this may be, they were the first native Americans to 
establish a pure democracy." 

Mr. Freeman wrote this little book over forty 
years ago when there was no special reason to draw 
any line of demarkation between Teutons and 
Anglo-Saxons, as there is at present. He begins 
with the first authentic account we have of the 
Teutons which is found in the " Germania " of 
Tacitus, the great Roman historian. Tacitus says : 

" They choose their kings on account of their 
nobility, their leaders on account of their valor. 
Nor have the kings an unbounded or arbitrary 
power, and the leaders rule rather by their example 
than by the right of command; if they are ready, 
if they are forward, if they are foremost in lead- 
ing the van, they hold the first place in honor. . . . 

" On smaller matters the chiefs debate, on greater 
matters all men, but so that those things whose final 
decision rests with the whole people are first handled 
by the chiefs. . . . The multitude sits armed in 
such order as it thinks good; silence is proclaimed 
by the priests, who have also the right of enforcing 
it. Presently the king or chief, according to the 
age of each, according to his birth, according to his 
glory in war or his eloquence, is listened to, speak- 
ing rather by the influence of persuasion than by 
the power of commanding. If their opinions give 
offense, they are thrust aside with a shout; if they 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 165 

are approved, the hearers clash their spears. It is 
held to be the most honorable kind of applause to 
use their weapons to signify approval. It is lawful 
also in the Assembly to bring matters for trial and 
to bring charges of capital crimes. ... In the 
same assembly chiefs are chosen to administer jus- 
tice through the districts and villages. Each chief 
in so doing has a hundred companions of the com- 
mons assigned to him, as at once his counselors and 
his authority. Moreover, they do no matter of busi- 
ness, public or private, except in arms" 

These customs are the germs of a free constitu- 
tion based on individualism and were carried to 
England by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, there to 
be developed during many centuries into the most 
orderly and well-matured system of government in 
the world excepting in the United States. As stated 
by Mr. Freeman: 

" On the Teutonic Mainland, the old Teutonic 
freedom, with its full assemblies, national and local, 
gradually died out before the encroachment of a 
brood of petty princes. In the Teutonic Island it 
has changed its form from age to age ; it has lived 
through many storms, and it has withstood the at- 
tacks of many enemies, but it has never utterly died 
out. The continued national life of the people, not- 
withstanding foreign conquests and internal revo- 
lutions, has remained unbroken for fourteen hun- 
dred years." 

Taking Europe as a whole, the hordes of bar- 
barians destroyed the Roman Empire, but the laws 



166 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

of Rome in turn superseded the customs and usages 
of the invaders and almost eradicated all traces of 
the robust individualism so predominant among the 
Teutons and Aryan peoples generally. Thus it will 
be seen that this strong, unconquered, and uncon- 
querable spirit of individualism in Great Britain has 
slowly but surely developed a nation capable of self- 
government which has never lost its individuality, 
but has on the contrary appropriated the best parts 
of the laws of Rome and made them serve its pur- 
poses. The " fierce spirit of liberty " described by 
Mr. Burke as prevailing in the American Colonies 
during the American Revolution, prevailed equally 
among the Virginia Cavaliers and the New England 
Puritans or Roundheads, and these characteristics 
have persisted here. This same apparently contra- 
dictory condition has always prevailed in England, 
taking it as a whole. No better illustration can be 
found of this fact than in Magna Charta. 

While Magna Charta was a compact between 
John and the Barons and Archbishops, it will be 
noticed that the fundamental rights of all freemen 
were safeguarded, especially concerning personal 
liberty and property. What before had been cus- 
toms, existing as traditions, were made definite and 
certain, as will appear from Articles 12, 36, 39, and 
40 — as follows : 

" 12. No scutage or aid shall be imposed in our 
kingdom, unless by the general council of our king- 
dom ; except for ransoming our person, making our 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 167 

eldest son a knight, and once for marrying our eld- 
est daughter; and for these three shall be paid no 
more than a reasonable aid. In like manner it shall 
be concerning the aids of the City of London. 

11 36. Nothing from henceforth shall be given 
or taken for a writ of inquisition of life or limb, 
but it shall be granted freely, and not denied. 

" 39. No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, 
or disseized, or outlawed, or banished, or any ways 
destroyed, nor will w r e pass upon him, nor will we 
send upon him, unless by the lawful judgement of 
his peers, or by the law of the land. 

" 40. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or 
delay to any man, either justice or right/ 1 



This custom of the English and Americans to 
impose written guarantees upon their rulers, and to 
make a solemn written record of every advance in 
government, has been of incalculable value to the 
cause of freedom, thus guaranteeing that no perma- 
nent backward step shall be taken in vitally impor- 
tant matters. 

It is noticeable, however, that of the sixty-three 
articles of Magna Charta how few of them are 
today of any consequence in England or else- 
where. 

The most valuable rights of persons and prop- 
erty are embodied in this great charter, and from 
the time it was signed, June 15, 1215, to the pres- 
ent it has been the chief mainstay of freedom in 
Great Britain and her colonies, and in the United 
States. Around this great charter as the veritable 



168 SAFEGUARDS OF, LIBERTY 

gospel of freedom the English-speaking peoples 
have built their governments, and have clung to its 
principles as the ancient Jews did to the Ark of 
the Covenant. The development and growth of 
these fundamental principles in England have chiefly 
been the result of contests between the so-called 
rights of the king and the rights of the people — 
the king acting under one pretext or another, gen- 
erally divine right and usage and the plea that the 
people were not capable of self-government, and the 
people claiming the right of self-government as a 
natural right and by virtue of their charters, and 
that all officers, including the king, were servants 
and not masters. As has been so well said by Mr. 
Burke, from the earliest times the great contests for 
freedom in England have been chiefly upon the ques- 
tion of taxation; and hence the additions to Magna 
Charta have been principally on this subject. The 
same has been true also as to the United States, as 
will appear from the first ten amendments to the 
Constitution at first adopted and the thirteenth, 
fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments which were 
added as a result of the Civil War. The rights 
of individuals have also been enlarged and made 
more definite and certain in both countries. The 
love of liberty is the strongest and noblest charac- 
teristic of the Anglo-Saxon, and it has never been 
eradicated from either the classes or the masses in 
England, and withal, the good common sense of 
the nation has always demanded the protection and 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 169 

safety of property as a necessary and indispensable 
means of procuring happiness. 

The English have until recently been provincial 
in this respect and their charters of liberty have thus 
far been confined to British liberties. 

The American colonists were the first to frame a 
charter of liberty for "all men". The idealism of 
the English has also been provincial, while that of 
the American has been cosmopolitan. Read the 
Declaration of Independence and compare it with 
Magna Charta and all other British charters. The 
Declaration of Independence says : " That all men 
are created equal; that they are endowed by their 
Creator with certain inalienable rights, etc." Magna 
Charta says : " That all men in our Kingdom have 
and hold all the aforesaid liberties, rights, and con- 
cessions, etc." 

The " British example ", as Mr. Jefferson called 
the British Constitution, has had an indirect in- 
fluence upon France and other countries, while the 
"American example" has been in the nature of a 
propaganda for freedom, and was the immediate 
and direct cause of the French Revolution; and ul- 
timately of the present great Republic in France. 
The success of a republican form of government in 
the United States has resulted in the Western Hemi- 
sphere becoming free republics and the adoption of 
the Monroe Doctrine. 

There is nothing so favorable to the extension of 
freedom as colonization and successful wars, as was 



170 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

demonstrated by the American Revolution. No 
part of the civilized world, including China and 
Japan and the Far East, has been exempt from the 
beneficent influences of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence and our republican institutions, except 
Germany and Austria, where Autocracy has been 
intrenched for centuries by militarism. These 
ideals of freedom have been cherished and culti- 
vated by the English-speaking peoples with the re- 
sult that a great and powerful civilization has been 
established upon them. The right of the individual 
to think as he pleases on all questions, the right to 
express his opinions, the right of the citizen to 
the protection of his person and property are fixed 
in the fundamental law, thus producing a condition 
which has made possible the cultivation of the arts 
and sciences and trade and intercourse among the 
nations — ever active only in intervals of peace. 
Autocracy as exemplified by a Prussianized Ger- 
many is the antithesis of the English and American 
plans of government. 

The stupendous war between Germany and her 
allies and France and her allies was to decide which 
ideals and fundamental principles shall govern and 
control the so-called civilized nations in the future. 
The signing of the armistice on November n, 1918, 
which marks the downfall of Autocracy in Europe 
for all times, it is to be hoped, is one of the great- 
est triumphs in the history of the human race and 
certainly in the history of human freedom. Never 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 171 

before in the history of the race has it been of such 
vast importance that a new record shall be made in 
harmony with the high ideals and noble aspirations 
of the free nations. Fortunately for mankind, 
Great Britain, France, the United States, and Italy 
each has a forward-looking statesman representing 
the best traditions of his nation, and equally fortu- 
nate is it that the United States has produced a 
great statesman who represents the highest scholar- 
ship and the best and most matured judgment of 
our people, a man who had the wisdom to make a 
declaration on behalf of the Entente Allies setting 
forth the aims and purposes of the war in their 
behalf. Our example in dealing with the Cubans 
and Filipinos and Porto Ricans will be of incal- 
culable value as object-lessons in dealing with the 
newly liberated peoples. 

It can be readily seen that these principles are 
fundamental and that they are the natural out- 
growth of the great charters of liberty of the Eng- 
lish-speaking people. 

The period of reconstruction in Central Europe 
and in Russia will naturally be along the lines herein 
analyzed, but much patience and supreme faith will 
be required to establish stable governments based 
upon the consent of the governed. 

No lover of liberty need be afraid to trace the 
history of these fundamental principles of govern- 
ment, or doubt for a moment their ultimate triumph. 
There are a few epochs in English history which 



172 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

should be studied critically and from original 
sources, as far as possible. Care should be taken 
not to be misled by histories such as Hume's " His- 
tory of England ", Mitford's " History of Greece ", 
and others which were written to cover up these 
truths and exaggerate the unpleasant and disagree- 
able concomitants of all revolutions. 

It is exceedingly helpful to study the lives of for- 
ward-looking men and these great documents of 
liberty. The greatest characters in English history 
will be found coupled with these events. As prac- 
tical examples in the effort to master these funda- 
mental principles of freedom, we need only begin 
with the Rebellion of 1649, an d study the careers 
of Hampden, Pym, Sidney, John Milton, and 
Oliver Cromwell; the "glorious revolution " of 
1688, and the careers of William of Orange and his 
advisers, as portrayed by Macaulay in his History 
of England, and especially in his incomparable 
essay on Milton in which he records in language 
that has become classic the grandeur and nobility 
of that freedom now existing among English speak- 
ing people, as the result of these two momentous 
events. We should also study the lives of such men 
as Burke, Pitt and Fox, in England, and of Wash- 
ington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Madison, Ham- 
ilton, Mason, Henry, and many others of the long 
line of heroes who made the American revolution 
possible and formed our forward-looking govern- 
ment 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 173 

Macaulay's incomparable essay on Milton, and 
Carlyle's " Cromwell " are the greatest contribu- 
tions to English history touching the revolution of 
1649, an d are recognized as classics. Macaulay's 
11 History of England " begins with the revolution 
of 1688, and is also a notable contribution to free- 
dom worthy of serious and careful perusal; and 
while written from the standpoint of an advocate 
his genius as a writer has given to the world a 
magnificent picture of the grandeur and nobility of 
that form of freedom now existing among all 
English speaking people. 

Following out the plan for writing history upon 
the theory first definitely expressed by Carlyle, that 
history consists of the biographies of great men, to 
which he has added the inestimable value of docu- 
mentary evidence in reproducing the history of in- 
stitutions, John Fiske in a series of essays, histori- 
cal and literary, has traced the development of 
American political ideas from the time of Tacitus 
to the administration of Cleveland. In three lec- 
tures entitled, " The Town Meeting ", " The Fed- 
eral Union ", and "Manifest Destiny", he unfolds 
in a broad and comprehensive manner the develop- 
ment of Anglo-Saxon ideas of government in Eng- 
land and the United States, and, with an optimism 
rarely encountered, he predicts the ultimate exten- 
sion of these ideas over the world, when the whole 
of mankind shall become one huge federation " each 
little group managing its local affairs in entire inde- 



174 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

pendence, but relegating all questions of interna- 
tional interest to the decision of one central tribunal 
supported by the public opinion of the entire human 
race ". 

In the remarkably able and discriminating papers 
on " Alexander Hamilton and the Federalist 
Party ", " Thomas Jefferson the Conservative Re- 
former ", " James Madison the Constructive States- 
man ", " Andrew Jackson and American Democ- 
racy Seventy Years Ago ", " Harrison, Tyler, and 
the Whig Coalition ", and " Daniel Webster and the 
Sentiment of Union " will be found the ablest, fair- 
est, and most candid exposition of political parties 
in this country that has ever been written. While 
we do not agree fully with Mr. Fiske in the relative 
merits of the men who have been made the central 
figures in the history, nor in all of the views ex- 
pressed, he has, without doubt, touched the vital 
points and evolved them with singular fairness and 
with a thoroughness of comprehension unequaled 
by any one who has written on the subject within 
our knowledge. 

These views may be epitomized under the follow- 
ing heads : 

(i) Local self-government in the United States 
in the form of the town meeting in New England, 
the county court in the South, and a combination 
of the two in other sections, can be traced to the 
old Teutonic constitution, as described in the " Ger- 
mania " of Tacitus. 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 175 

(2) The principle of representation, which was 
an invention of the Anglo-Saxon mind in England, 
has had its greatest development in the United 
States and has solved the chief problem of civili- 
zation, from the political point of view, by securing 
concerted action among men on a great scale with- 
out sacrificing local independence. 

(3) Political parties in the United States owe 
their origin to a difference between Hamilton and 
Jefferson as to the construction of the Constitution 
of the United States, the one insisting upon a " loose 
construction " and the other a " strict construction " 
of that instrument; but the fundamental idea goes 
back into English history and has been kept up in 
England to the present, under different names, as 
here. Fiske says : 



" As a rule the Republican party of Jefferson, 
with its lineal successor the Democratic party from 
Jackson to Cleveland, has advocated strict con- 
struction; while loose construction has characterized 
the Federalist party of Hamilton with its later rep-' 
resentatives, the National Republican party of 
Quincy Adams, the Clay and Webster wing of the 
Whig party, and the Republicans of the present day J 
This general rule, however, has been seriously com- 
plicated by the fact that the same party is apt to 
entertain very different views when in power from 
those which it entertains when in opposition. The 
tendency of the party in possession of the govern- 
ment is to interpret its powers liberally, while the 
party in opposition seeks to restrict them. ,, 



176 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

(4) Hamilton dictated the general policies of 
the government until 1801, when Jefferson was 
elected on account of the blunder of the Federalists 
in the enactment of the Alien and Sedition laws. 
Jefferson was a conservative reformer and made 
few changes in the personnel of the government and 
by his sympathetic insight into the popular mind and 
his magnetic personality he won the confidence of 
all classes of people and made the greatest strides 
towards creating a genuine sentiment for national 
union. Fiske says : 

" The American people took Jefferson into their 
hearts as they have never taken any other states- 
man until Lincoln these latter days. . . . Jeffer- 
son's influence had become great because he had ab- 
sorbed all the strength of his adversary. He had 
not approved of Hamilton's acts, but he knew how 
to adopt them and appropriate them, just as Hamil- 
ton had adopted and appropriated Madison's theory 
of the Constitution.'' 

(5)1 From 181 5 to i860, owing to the rapid 
growth and development of the United States in 
population and wealth, many new questions arose 
and a new society was formed much more demo- 
cratic than had theretofore existed. All of the 
States remodeled or amended their constitutions so 
as to make them more democratic, extending the 
right of suffrage, making the terms of office shorter 
and generally elective. 

The great leader in this movement was Andrew 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 177 

Jackson, the first President from west of the Alle- 
ghanies. The new spirit was intensely American, 
with a decidedly popular feeling towards pure de- 
mocracy and for the first time what is known as the 
" spoils system " was introduced. Fiske says : 

" The pure American spirit first came to ma- 
turity in the breasts of that rugged population that, 
since the days of Daniel Boone and James Robert- 
son, had been pouring down the western slope of 
the Alleghanies and making the beginnings of two 
commonwealths, Kentucky and Tennessee. These 
were States that from the outset owed no allegiance 
to a sovereign power beyond the ocean. 

11 The importance of this new development for a 
long time passed unnoticed by the older communi- 
ties on the Atlantic Coast, and especially by the New 
England States. 

" This feeling has been apt to color the books on 
American history written by Eastern men. There 
could be no better illustration of this than the 
crudeness of the opinions current about it in our 
literature and taught in our text-books concerning 
the career of Andrew T Jackson. In studying the life 
of this great man, we must first observe the char- 
acteristics of the people among whom his earlier 
years were spent and of whom he w r as to such a 
marked degree the representative and leader. If 
we were required to give a receipt for compounding 
the most masterful race of men that could be imag- 
ined, one could hardly do better than say ' To a 
very liberal admixture of Scotch and Scotch-Irish, 
with English stock, with a considerable infusion of 
Huguenot, add a trace of Swiss and Welsh and set 
the whole to work for a half-century, hewing down 



178 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

the forest and waging an exterminating warfare 
with Indians \ Originally their theology was Cal- 
vinistic, but during the latter part of the eighteenth 
century a great w r ave of Wesleyanism swept over 
this part of the country, and Baptist preachers also 
made many converts. . . . The period of Jack- 
sons presidency was one of the most remarkable 
in the history of the world, and nowhere more re- 
markable than in the United States. As the typical 
popular hero of such a period, Andrew Jackson 
must always remain one of the most picturesque and 
interesting figures in American history. The crude- 
ness of some of his methods, and the evils that have 
followed from some of his measures, are obvious 
enough, and have often been remarked upon. Now 
in the case of Andrew Jackson, while he was not 
versed in the history and philosophy of government, 
it is far from correct to say that there was nothing 
of the statesman about him. On the contrary it may 
be maintained that in nearly all his most important 
public acts, except those that dealt with the civil 
service, Jackson was right. His theory of the sit- 
uation was not reached by scientific methods, but 
it was sound, and it was much needed. Among the 
ablest books that have ever been written — books that 
ought to be carefully read and deeply pondered by 
every intelligent American man and woman, are the 
three works of Herbert Spencer, entitled, ' Social 
Statics ', ' The Study of Sociology \ and * Man and 
the State \ The theory of government set forth in 
these books is that of the most clear-headed and 
powerful thinker now living in the world, a man 
who, moreover, is thinking the thoughts of tomor- 
row as well as of today. In spirit it is most pro- 
foundly American, but not in the sense in which that 
word was understood by Clay and the Whigs. It 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 179 

was Jackson whose sounder instincts prompted him 
to a course of action quite in harmony with the 
highest philosophy. " 

(6) The spirit of paternalism that had grown 
up in connection with tariffs for protection, internal 
improvements, and the United States bank, and the 
effort of South Carolina to nullify the Acts of Con- 
gress gave Jackson an opportunity to create a prece- 
dent in favor of the Union that proved to be of in- 
calculable benefit when he said to the nullifiers in 
substance, " Gentlemen, if you attempt to put your 
scheme into practice, I shall consider it an act of 
war, and shall treat it accordingly.'' Fiske says : 

" During the administration of John Quincy 
Adams, there was fast growing up a tendency to- 
ward a molly-coddling, old granny theory of govern- 
ment, according to which the ruling powers are to 
take care of the people, build their roads for them, 
do their banking for them, rob Peter to pay Paul 
for carrying on a losing business, and tinker and 
muddle things generally. It was, of course, beyond 
the power of any man to override a tendency of this 
sort, but Jackson did much to check it, and still more 
would have come from his initiative if the questions 
of slavery and secession had not so soon come up to 
absorb men's minds and divert their attention from 
everything else. The protection theory of govern- 
ment has too much life in it yet; but without Jack- 
son it w T ould no doubt have been worse. His de- 
struction of the bank was brought about in a way 
that we cannot wish to see often repeated ; but there 
can be little doubt that it has saved us from a great 



i8o SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

deal of trouble and danger. By this time the bank, 
if it had lasted, would probably have become a most 
formidable engine of corruption.'' 

(7) The speeches of Daniel Webster in support 
of the Union, and especially his " Reply to Hayne ", 
supplemented Jackson's " Force Bill " against South 
Carolina and aided greatly in saving the Union in 
1 86 1. Fiske says: 

" The question as to whether the federal Consti- 
tution created a nation or not, was never really 
settled until it was settled by war. Previous to 
Jackson's presidency, people's ideas on the subject 
were very hazy, and when single States, or sections 
of the country grumbled and threatened, nobody 
knew exactly what ought to be done about it. It 
was significant that Webster's great speech and 
Jackson's decisive action should have come as close 
together. Webster's speech was not only a most 
masterful summing up of the situation, but for 
sublime eloquence, we must go back to the time of 
Demosthenes to find its equal. Among the forces 
that have held the Union together, the intelligent 
response of the popular mind to that speech, and the 
strong emotions it awakened, must be assigned a 
very high place." 

As stated by Mr. Lincoln, the Republican party of 
today was founded on the principles of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and its first great issue was 
the freedom of slaves, unfortunately incorporated 
in the Constitution by inference, if not in express 
terms. Had the advice of Jefferson, Washington, 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 181 

Mason, and other great Virginians been followed 
the Civil War would have been averted. 

Great Britain was more fortunate than the United 
States in the settlement of this great moral issue. 
The public sentiment of intelligent mankind, after 
centuries of oppression and abuses that were 
thought to be ineradicable, suddenly realized, after 
a most persistent agitation in Great Britain and the 
United States, that all men should be free. The 
Declaration of Independence and the success of our 
republican government made the profoundest im- 
pression in favor of this movement. In England 
slavery was destroyed by a decision of a court of 
law, as the result of a strong popular sentiment 
aroused by Wilberforce and others. 

The decision of the Supreme Court of the United 
States in the Dred Scott case, holding that slavery 
was protected by the Constitution, was the immedi- 
ate and moving cause of the war between the States, 
but it can readily be seen that the decision was cor- 
rect from a purely legal standpoint. 

Mr. Jefferson's prophecy was fulfilled, and the 
entire world shuddered while the issue was fought 
out, theoretically how the Constitution should be 
construed, but practically over the question of slav- 
ery. The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth 
amendments were added to the Constitution as the 
result of the war, it is true, slavery was abolished 
and further restraints were imposed on the States 
with reference to persons and property. The great 



1 82 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

issue, however, as to how the Constitution should 
be construed is still unsettled, and can never be 
settled as long as we have a free government. The 
same general issues as to national policies continued 
after the war, as well as the same inconsistencies in 
parties, in power and out of power; but fortunately 
the same strong tendency towards Union and love 
of liberty has never died out. 

The Spanish-American War during McKinley's 
administration had a most wholesome influence in 
destroying the sectional feeling and restoring the 
sentiment for the Union. During recent years all 
parties have vied with one another in an effort to 
build up a robust and healthy Americanism and 
there have been fewer differences of opinion on 
vital questions than at any other period in the 
history of the country, unless it was during the 
" era of good feeling ", while Monroe was Presi- 
dent. 

Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and 
Woodrow Wilson are each entitled to a great share 
of credit for this wonderful transformation. The 
crowning achievement, however, in the accomplish- 
ment of this most salutary undertaking was the en- 
trance of the United States into the world war be- 
tween Autocracy and Democracy. 

Mr. Burke's characterization of liberty in the 
American colonies does not overdraw the picture 
at this time, and we can truly say that it was not 
only fierce but chivalrous and inspired with the 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 183 

spirit of the early Crusaders. The unanimity with 
which the American people of all sections entered 
this war, and the self-sacrifice and idealism mani- 
fested, are without a parallel in the history of the 
world, and will ultimately produce a higher and 
nobler type of American citizenship and a greater 
and nobler nation. It has also demonstrated that 
a republican form of government is the strongest 
in the world, as contended by Mr. Jefferson in his 
first inaugural address. Had not this unanimity 
of sentiment existed, the stringent laws against free- 
dom of speech and freedom of the press could never 
have been enacted or enforced. 

However, it should not be forgotten that these 
safeguards, like the writ of habeas corpus, can never 
be safely suspended except in times of war. There 
is a striking similarity in the conditions now pre- 
vailing over the entire world and those prevailing in 
Europe and the United States in the first years of 
the nineteenth century. No better advice can be 
given in dealing with them here at home than is 
contained in Mr. Jefferson's first inaugural hereto- 
fore referred to, in these words : 



" During the throes and convulsions of the 
ancient world during the agonizing spasms of in- 
furiated man, seeking through blood and slaughter 
his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the 
agitation of the billows should reach even this dis- 
tant and peaceful shore; that this should be felt 
and feared by some and less by others; that this 



184 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

should divide opinions as to measures of safety. 
But every difference of opinion is not a difference 
of principle. We have called by different names 
brethren of the same principle. We are all republi- 
cans; we are all federalists. If there be among us 
those who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to 
change its republican form, let them stand undis- 
turbed, as monuments of the safety with which 
error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is 
left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some 
honest men fear that the republican Government 
cannot be strong; that this Government is not strong 
enough, but would the honest patriot, in the full 
tide of successful experiment, abandon a Govern- 
ment which has so far kept us free and firm, on 
the theoretic and visionary fear that this Govern- 
ment, the world's best hope, may, by possibility, 
want energy to preserve it? I trust not. I believe 
this, on the contrary, the strongest Government on 
earth. I believe it is the only one where every 
man, at the call of the law, would fly to the stand- 
ard of the law and would meet invasions of the 
public order as his own concern. Sometimes it has 
been said that man cannot be trusted with the gov- 
ernment of himself. Can he then be trusted with 
the government of others? Or have we found 
angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let 
history answer this question/' 

A remarkable coincidence in the history of the 
United States is the fact that the issues making 
the war between the States inevitable should have 
brought forth a man like Abraham Lincoln, whose 
faith in the ability of the common people to govern 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 185 

themselves should rival that of Thomas Jefferson, 
and that old Virginia should have produced such 
men as Robert E. Lee and " Stonewall " Jackson. 

The glory of the English-speaking people has 
ever been that at no time have they failed to produce 
a great man to lead them in national crises, and this 
is and has ever been the severest test. This has been 
especially true of the United States from Wash- 
ington to Wilson. That Mr. Wilson will be the 
spokesman and writer of the new declaration of 
freedom from the tyranny and autocracy in Europe, 
and will give the belligerents a program for a just 
and righteous peace, now, with safeguards for the 
future, no one can successfully deny who has 
thoughtfully watched and studied the trend 
of events during the last few years, and has 
faith in the ability of the people to govern them- 
selves. 

The vast strides in transportation and means of 
communication and the destructive agencies of war, 
such as the submarine and aeroplane, have forced 
the United States to abandon, temporarily at least, 
her policy of isolation. The British Channel for 
centuries enabled England to avoid conflicts with 
European nations, just as the Atlantic Ocean has 
protected the United States, but these natural bar- 
riers no longer avail. The problem, therefore, for 
the Entente Allies to solve is how to establish gov- 
ernments in Central Europe based, as theirs are, 
upon the consent of the governed, and thus restore 



1 86 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

to the Teuton and other Aryan peoples the birth- 
right which they so foolishly and ignorantly sur- 
rendered to petty princes. 

This problem is now thoroughly understood, and 
the details will be worked out in a League of 
Nations. Final success must come, and whether 
war be abolished or not immediately, the causes for 
wars will be vastly diminished, and the happiness 
and safety of freemen will be so advanced as to 
justify the belief that a millennium of peace is 
approaching. 

A century of peace between Great Britain and the 
United States, and the fact that there is not a single 
military post or fort along the boundary line be- 
tween Canada and the United States, covering a dis- 
tance of over three thousand miles, more than justi- 
fies the belief that peace is not only possible, but 
probable, among self-governing nations. 

When we contrast the visit of Wilson to England, 
and the reception given him by George V and the 
masses of the English people, with the conduct of 
George III before and during the American Revo- 
lution and the visit made to him by Thomas Jef- 
ferson and John Adams, seeking to make treaties 
of commerce and friendship, we can truly say that 
the world has changed for the better. 

The speeches of George V and Mr. Wilson mark 
an epoch in the history of the world, and both are 
worthy of perpetual remembrance. 

King George V said in part : 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 187 

11 You share with us the traditions of Magna 
Charta. We recognize the bond of still deeper sig- 
nificance in the common ideals which our people 
cherish. First, among these ideals you value, and 
we value, freedom and peace. Privileged as we 
have been to be the exponents and the examples in 
national life of the principles of popular self-gov- 
ernment, based upon equal laws, it now falls to both 
of us alike to see how these principles can be ap- 
plied beyond our own borders for the good of the 
world. 

" It was love of liberty, respect for law, good 
faith, and the sacred rights of humanity that 
brought you to the old world to help in saving it 
from the dangers that were threatening and that 
arraigned those soldier citizens of yours, whose gal- 
lantry we have admired, side by side with ours in 
the war. 

" You have come now to help in building up new 
states amid the ruins of those that the war has 
shattered and in laying the solid foundations of a 
settlement that must stand firm, because it must 
rest upon the consent of the emancipated nationali- 
ties. You have eloquently expressed the hope of 
the American people, as it is our hope, that some 
plan may be devised to attain the end you have 
done so much to promote by which the risk of 
future wars may, if possible, be averted, relieving 
the nations of the intolerable burden which fear of 
war has laid upon them." 

Mr. Wilson said in part: 

" There is a great tide running in the hearts of 
men. The hearts of men have never beaten so sin- 
gularly in unison before. Men have never before 



188 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

been so conscious of their brotherhood. Men have 
never before realized how little difference there was 
between right and justice in one latitude and in 
another, under one sovereignty and under another.. 

" And it will be our high privilege I believe, Sir, 
not only to apply the moral judgment of the world 
to the particular settlements which we shall attempt, 
but also to organize the moral force of the world 
to preserve those settlements, to steady the forces 
of mankind and to make the right and the justice 
to which great nations like our own have devoted 
themselves the predominant and controlling force 
of the world. 

" There is something inspiring in knowing that 
this is the errand that we have come on. Nothing 
less than this would have justified me in leaving 
the important tasks which fall upon me upon the 
other side of the sea — nothing but the consciousness 
that nothing else compares with this in dignity and 
importance." 



May we not confidently hope and pray that in 
future years Woodrow Wilson shall be known as 
the liberator of Central Europe, as Lincoln is 
known as the liberator of the Negro race? 

In order to fully appreciate the significance of 
the great truths pertaining to government and espe- 
cially the fundamental principles now recognized in 
all English-speaking nations as the safeguards of 
liberty, it should be remembered that they are the 
result of centuries of actual experience, and that 
they have stood the supreme tests in peace and war. 

The greatest statesmen and writers on political 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 189 

economy have come to recognize the truth that law 
is a growth and is a thing to be discovered, rather 
than a thing to be made. As has been said by 
Jenks: 

" Law is made unconsciously by the men whom 
it most concerns; it is the deliberate result of human 
experience working from the known to the un- 
known, a little piece of knowledge won from igno- 
rance, of order from chaos. It is begun by the 
superior man; it is accepted by the average man. 
So law must be declared and after that enforced. 
This declaration and enforcement are the work of 
the official few, of the authorities who legislate and 
execute. There was plenty of law in the Middle 
Ages; but it was for the most part ill declared and 
badly enforced. The great problem which lay be- 
fore the statesmen of the Middle Ages was to de- 
vise a machine which should declare and enforce 
law uniformly and steadily. The supreme triumph 
of English statesmanship is that it solved this prob- 
lem some five hundred years before the rest of the 
Teutonic world. By bringing together into one 
body representatives of those who made her laws, 
by confronting them with those who could declare 
and enforce them, England was able to know what 
her law was, to declare it with certain voice, and 
to enforce it thoroughly and completely." 

The processes have been broadened and improved 
in the United States, and federal union has been 
made not only possible but workable. This same 
capacity for governing large areas and innumerable 
individuals combined in local groups having and 



190 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

retaining their separate autonomy, is a great dis- 
covery belonging to American statesmen alone. 
Napoleon called it ideology, thereby inventing a 
new word to express his lack of faith in the ex- 
periment. 

A League of Nations is not half so Utopian a 
scheme to the thoughtful student of government 
today as was the experiment made by the framers 
of our National Constitution to English and Eu- 
ropean statesmen. There was violent opposition to 
the adoption of the Constitution here in America, 
as has been shown, and all sorts of prognostications 
of failure and utter ruin were made by many of the 
most patriotic man who had taken the lead for inde- 
pendence. The opposition in the United States to 
the League of Nations are following the same tac- 
tics as did their progenitors to our Constitution. 

Shall it be said that with the great mass of 
superb laws which have existed for centuries con- 
stituting a code of laws for the government of 
nations, known as international law, the statesmen 
of the world have not the ability and ingenuity to 
devise a machine which shall enforce it? The con- 
ditions were never so propitious as now, and the 
best brains of the world are consciously co-operating 
with the members of the Peace Tribunal to help 
solve it. One has only to read carefully the most 
remarkable letter ever written by Mr. Jefferson — 
to-wit, his letter to James Monroe, dated October 
24, 1823, when he was requested to give his opinion 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 191 

which led to the adoption of the Monroe Doctrine 
— to discover that the objections urged by him to 
entangling alliances with European nations, while 
he strongly favored an alliance with England, was 
because of the despotic governments having different 
interests from those of our free republic, and that 
the Holy Alliance was a league to protect kings 
and crush democratic ideas which threatened them. 

The English and American ideas of popular 
sovereignty are now for the first time predominant, 
and the divine right of kings and other monstrosi- 
ties belonging to Autocracy have found at last a 
temporary defeat in the demise of the Hohenzollern 
and Hapsburg dynasties. 

The slow but sure process of settling disputes 
between nations by arbitration, which has been 
adopted by Great Britain and the United States for 
nearly a century with entire satisfaction to both 
countries, shows not only the feasibility of the idea 
but its absolute utility. The Supreme Court of the 
United States, another of the great inventions of 
American statesmanship, is a model for one of the 
tribunals, as it was the first that ever undertook 
to settle political controversies between States. By 
a process of evolution intelligent mankind has long 
since determined that it is better to settle contro- 
versies between individuals, even when questions of 
honor are at stake, by courts of justice, rather than 
by the code duello; that it is more expedient to 
grant the utmost liberty to the individual and 



192 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

subordinate communities, upon the theory that man 
is capable of self-government, than to attempt 
to maintain order with standing armies, and that 
finally public opinion, where there is freedom of 
speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of re- 
ligion, under a free government having all of the 
safeguards of liberty herein attempted to be ex- 
plained, is the safest and best foundation for that 
perpetual peace which has been the dream of ages 
when " Nations shall beat their swords into plow- 
shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks, and 
nation shall not lift sword against nation, neither 
shall they learn war any more." 

With the Associated Press in every nook and 
corner of the world, wireless telegraphy, wireless 
telephony, naval seaplanes crossing the Atlantic 
ocean in twenty-six hours and forty-one minutes, 
there should be no difficulty in establishing a world 
public opinion and thus formulate a guide to world 
statesmanship as trustworthy and reliable as public 
opinion in the great free governments which are 
forming the League of Nations. 

The policies of the United States must be en- 
larged so as to cover and protect our foreign com- 
merce, now that we are to have a merchant marine 
commensurate with the growth and development 
of our manufactures and other surplus commodi- 
ties. Commerce has ever been the prolific cause 
of war, and without some tribunal to regulate and 
control foreign commerce and adjust differences 



GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT 193 

growing out of sharp conflicts arising therefrom 
between rival nations, further wars will be inevi- 
table. The happy results following our adoption of 
the Constitution by Washington and other states- 
man, in avoiding conflicts which would have ter- 
minated in war between colonial states, should 
hearten Mr. Wilson and his co-laborers in the solu- 
tion of the greatest problem ever undertaken by 
men. When we contemplate for a moment the gen- 
erous and whole-hearted support being given Mr. 
Wilson by the best brains of Puritan New England, 
under the leadership of President Lowell and the 
able and patriotic faculty of Harvard, and Judge 
William Howard Taft, of Yale, and others too 
numerous to recount, and that constructive force 
representing the Scotch-Irish and its great edu- 
cators, as well as the representatives of every great 
university in the country, and see the same aline- 
ment of men and institutions in other countries 
taking part in the Peace Conference, and that the 
prayers of the Church and its whole life and aspira- 
tions are wrapped up in the success of their efforts, 
the spectacle rises to the morally sublime. 

Remembering that Mr. Wilson is the son of the 
Old Dominion and the representative of all that is 
best in the Scotch-Irish race and its noblest tradi- 
tions of love for freedom and of education, and 
his idealism resulting therefrom, it is not difficult 
to understand how it was that he had an irresistible 
impulse to go to Paris to represent the United 



i 9 4 SAFEGUARDS OF LIBERTY 

States at the Peace Tribunal. The constructive 
ability of Mr. Wilson has been taxed as no Presi- 
dent has ever been in the history of the United 
States, and he has been equal to every emergency, 
and left a record without parallel for construc- 
tive statesmanship. By education, experience as 
president of Princeton University, Governor of 
New Jersey, and President of the United States, 
he has had rare opportunities to display his genius 
as an educator and statesman. In this unpre- 
cedented emergency, demanding the very best that 
a Christian nation can produce, are we not justified 
in concluding, with John Milton, the first and 
grandest of democrats in the true sense of the word, 
that " God then raises to his own work men of rare 
abilities, and more than common industry, not only 
to look back and revive what hath been taught 
heretofore, but to gain further, and to go on some 
new enlightened steps in the discovery of truth 9 \ 
and that Woodrow Wilson is that man? 



APPENDIX A 

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

In Congress July 4, 1776 

When in the course of human events it becomes 
necessary for one people to dissolve the political 
bands which have connected them with another, 
and to assume among the powers of the earth, the 
separate and equal station to which the Laws of 
Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent 
respect to the opinions of mankind requires that 
they should declare the causes which impel them to 
the separation. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, That all 
men are created equal, that they are endowed by 
their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that 
among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of 
Happiness. 

[See Milton, " Tenure of Kings and Mag- 
istrates," and Locke, " On Govern- 
ment".] 
That to secure these rights, Governments are 
instituted among Men, deriving their Just powers 
from the consent of the governed. 

[See Milton, Ibid.; Burke, "On Concilia- 
tion with the Colonies " ; Freeman, 
"Growth of English Constitution "; 
John Fiske, " American Political 
Ideas".] 

195 



196 APPENDIX 

That whenever any Form of Government be- 
comes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of 
the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute 
new Government, laying its foundation on such 
principles and organizing its powers in such form, 
as to them shall seem most likely to effect their 
Safety and Happiness. 

[See Virginia Bill of Rights, 1776.] 

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments 
long established should not be changed for light and 
transient causes, and accordingly all experience hath 
shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, 
while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves 
by abolishing the forms to which they are accus- 
tomed. But when a long train of abuses and 
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object 
evinces a design to reduce them under absolute 
Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw 
off such Government, and to provide new Guards 
for their future security. 

[See Milton, Ibid.; "Agreement of the 
People of England" (1649); "The 
Instrument of Government " (1653), 
and Bill of Rights (1689).] 

Such has been the patient sufferance of these 
Colonies; and such is now the necessity which 
constrains them to alter their former Systems of 
Government. The history of the present King of 
Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and 
usurpations, all having in direct object the estab- 
lishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. 
To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid 
world. 

[Here follows List of Grievances.] 

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most 
wholesome and necessary for the public good. 



APPENDIX 197 

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of 
immediate and pressing importance, unless sus- 
pended in their operation till his Assent should be 
obtained; and when so suspended he has utterly 
neglected to attend to them. 

He has refused to pass other Laws for the ac- 
commodation of large districts of people, unless 
those people would relinquish the right of Repre- 
sentation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to 
them and formidable to tyrants only. 

He has called together legislative bodies at places 
unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the de- 
pository of their public Records, for the sole pur- 
pose of fatiguing them into compliance with his 
measures. 

[See Magna Charta, Art. 17.] 

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeat- 
edly, for opposing with manly firmness his inva- 
sions on the rights of the people. 

[Assemblies in Virginia, Massachusetts, 
and elsewhere.] 

He has refused for a long time, after such dis- 
solutions, to cause others to be elected; Whereby 
the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, 
have returned to the people at large for their exer- 
cise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed 
to all the dangers of invasion from without, and 
convulsions within. 

He has endeavored to prevent the population of 
these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws 
for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass 
others to encourage their migrations hither, and 
raising the conditions of new Appropriations of 
land. 

[England required the Colonial Govern- 
ments to issue no more grants of 



198 APPENDIX 

land and to allow no settlements west 

of the sources of the Atlantic Board 

Rivers.] 

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, 

by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing 

Judiciary Powers. 

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, 
for the tenure of their offices; and the amount and 
payment of their salaries. 

[Bill of Rights, 1689, and change of 
tenure and salaries of Judiciary in 
reign of William and Mary.] 
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and 
sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our peo- 
ple, and eat out their substance. 

He has kept among us, in times of peace Standing 
Armies without the consent of our legislature. 
[See Bill of Rights, 1689.] 
He has affected to render the Military independ- 
ent of and superior to the Civil power. 

He has combined with others to subject us to a 
jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unac- 
knowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their 
Acts of pretended Legislation: 
[Parliament.] 
For quartering large bodies of armed troops 
among us; 

For protecting them, by mock Trial, from punish- 
ment for any Murders which they should commit 
on the inhabitants of these States. 

[Bill of Rights, 1689, etc.] 
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the 
world : 

[Boston Port Bill.] 
For imposing Taxes on us without our Con- 
sent: 



APPENDIX 199 

[Stamp Tax, Tea Tax, etc. Summary 
View.] 
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits 
of Trial by jury: 

[Jury changed Vice-Admiralty Court.] 
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for 
pretended offenses: 

[Transportation Bill.] 
For abolishing the free Systems of English Laws 
in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an 
Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Bound- 
aries so as to render it at once an example and 
fit instrument for introducing the same absolute 
rule into these Colonies: 

[Quebec Bill, 1774.] 
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our 
most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally 
the Forms of our Governments : 

[Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massa- 
chusetts, etc.] 
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declar- 
ing themselves invested with power to legislate for 
us in all cases whatsoever: 

[Virginia, Georgia, Massachusetts, Mary- 
land, New York.] 
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring 
us out of his Protection and waging War against us : 
[So-called abdication of James II in Bill 
of Rights, 1689.] 
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, 
burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our 
people. 

He is at this time transporting large Armies of 
foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of 
death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with 
circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely 



200 APPENDIX 

paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally 
unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. 
[Hessian troops.] 

He has constrained our fellow-citizens taken cap- 
tive on the high seas to bear Arms against their 
country, to become the executioners of their friends 
and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. 

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst 
us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants 
of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, 
whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished 
destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. 

In every stage of these Oppressions We have 
petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms : 

[Virginia Resolutions and Declaration of 
Rights and Grievances, 1765.] 

Our repeated Petitions have been answered only 
by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is 
thus marked by every act which may define a 
Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. 

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our 
British brethren. We have warned them from time 
to time of attempts by their legislature to extend 
an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have 
reminded them of the circumstances of our emigra- 
tion and settlement here. We have appealed to 
their native justice and magnanimity, and we have 
conjured them by the ties of our common kindred 
to disavow these usurpations, which would inevi- 
tably interrupt our connections and correspondence. 
[Address to the People of Great Britain.] 

They too have been deaf to the voice of jus- 
tice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, 
acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our 
Separation, and hold them, as w r e hold the rest of 
mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. 



APPENDIX 201 

We Therefore, the Representatives of the 
United States of America, in General Con- 
gress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge 
of the World for the rectitude of our intentions, do, 
in the Name, and by authority of the good people 
of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, 
That these United Colonies are, and of Right out 
to be free and independent States; that they 
are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British 
Crown, and that all political connection between 
them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought 
to be totally dissolved; and that as free and inde- 
pendent States, they have full power to levy 
War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish 
Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things 
which independent States may of right do. And 
for the support of this Declaration, with a firm re- 
liance on the protection of Divine Providence, We 
mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our For- 
tunes and our sacred Honor. 

[The foregoing declaration w r as, by order 
of Congress, engrossed, and signed 
by the following members:] 

John Hancock. 



New Hampshire. 

Josiah Bartlett, Matthew Thornton. 
Wm. Whipple, 



Massachusetts Bay. 

Saml. Adams, Robt. Treat Paine, 

John Adams, Elbridge Gerry. 



202 APPENDIX 

Rhode Island, etc. 
Step. Hopkins, William Ellery. 

Connecticut. 

Roger Sherman, Wm. Williams, 

Sam'el Huntington, Oliver Wolcott. 

New York. 

Wm. Floyd, Frans. Lewis, 

Phil Livingston, Lewis Morris. 

New Jersey. 

Richd. Stockton, John Hart, 

Jno. Witherspoon, Abra. Clark. 

Fras. Hopkinson, 

Pennsylvania. 

Robt. Morris, Jas. Smith, 

Benjamin Rush, Geo. Taylor, 

Benja. Franklin, James Wilson, 

John Morton, Geo. Ross. 
Geo. Clymer, 

Delaware. 

Cesar Rodney, Tho. M'Kean. 

Geo. Read, 

Maryland. 

Samuel Chase, Thos. Stone, 

Wm, Paca, Charles Carroll, 

qf Carrollton, 



APPENDIX 203 

Virginia. 

George Wythe, Tiios. Nelson, Jr., 

Richard Henry Lee, Francis Ligiitfoot Lee, 
Th Jefferson, Carter Braxton. 

Benjamin Harrison, 

North Carolina. 

Wm. Hooper, John Penn. 

Joseph Hewes, 

South Carolina. 

Edward Rutledge, Thomas Lynch, Jr., 
Thos. Heyward, Jr., Arthur Middleton. 

Georgia. 

Button Gwinnett, Geo. Walton. 

Lyman Hall, 

Resolved, That copies of the Declaration be sent 
to the several assemblies, conventions, and commit- 
tees or councils of safety, and to the several com- 
manding officers of the Continental Troops: That it 
be proclaimed in each of the United States, and 
at the Head of the Army. 

{Jour. Cong., Vol. I, p. 396.) 



APPENDIX B 

A BILL FOR ESTABLISHING RELIGIOUS 
FREEDOM 

Section i. Well aware that the opinions and 
belief of men depend not on their own will, but 
follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their 
minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind 
free, and manifested His supreme will that free it 
shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of 
restraint: that all attempts to influence it by tem- 
poral punishments or burthens, or by civil incapaci- 
tations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and 
meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the 
Holy Author of our religion, who being Lord both 
of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by 
coercions on either, as was in His almighty power 
to do, but to exalt it by its influence on reason 
alone; that the impious presumption of legislature 
and ruler, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being 
themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have 
assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting 
up their own opinions and modes of thinking as 
the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring 
to impose them on others, hath established and 
maintained false religions over the greatest part of 
the world, and through all time : that to compel a 
man to furnish contributions of money for the 
propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and 
abhors is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forc- 
ing him to support this or that teacher of his own 

204 



APPENDIX 205 

religious persuasion, is depriving him of the com- 
fortable liberty of giving his contributions to the 
particular pastor, whose morals he would make his 
pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive 
to righteousness; and is withdrawing from the min- 
istry those temporary rewards, which, proceeding 
from an approbation of their personal conduct, are 
an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting 
labors for the instruction of mankind, that our civil 
rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, 
any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; 
and therefore the proscribing any citizen as un- 
worthy the public confidence by laying upon him an 
incapacity of being called to office of trust or emolu- 
ment, unless he profess or renounce this or that 
religious opinion, is depriving him injudiciously of 
those privileges and advantages to which, in com- 
mon with his fellow-citizens, he has a natural right ; 
that it tends also to corrupt the principles of that 
very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing 
with a monopoly of wordly honors and emoluments, 
those who will externally profess and conform to it; 
that though indeed these are criminals who do not 
withstand such temptation, yet neither are those in- 
nocent who lay the bait in their way; that the opin- 
ions of men are not the object of civil government, 
nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil 
magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of 
opinion, and to restrain the profession or propa- 
gation of principles on supposition of their ill ten- 
dency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys 
all religious liberty, because, he being of course 
judge of that tendency, will make his opinions the 
rule of judgement, and approve or condemn the 
sentiments of others only as they shall square with 
or differ from his own; that it is time enough for 



206 APPENDIX 

the rightful purposes of civil government for its 
officers to interfere when principles break out into 
overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, 
that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; 
that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to 
error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict un- 
less, by human interposition, disarmed of her natu- 
ral weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceas- 
ing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to 
contradict them; 

Section II. We, the General Assembly of 
Virginia, do enact that no man shall be compelled to 
frequent or support any religious worship, place, 
or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be be enforced, 
restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or 
goods, or shall otherwise suffer on account of his 
religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall 
be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, 
their opinions in matters of religion, and that the 
same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect 
their civil capacities. 

Section III. And though we well know that 
this Assembly, elected by the people for the ordi- 
nary purposes of legislation only, have no power to 
restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies, consti- 
tuted with powers equal to our own, and that, there- 
fore, to declare this act to be irrevocable would be 
of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and 
do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of 
the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act 
shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to 
narrow its operation, such act will be an infringe- 
ment of natural right. 

XVIII, 454; Ford Ed., II, 237 [1786].) 



APPENDIX C 

VIRGINIA BILL OF RIGHTS 

A Declaration of Rights (June 12, 1776) 

Made by the Representatives of the good people 
of Virginia, assembled in full and free Convention, 
which rights to pertain to them and their posterity 
as the basis and foundation of government. 

I. That all men are by nature equally free and 
independent, and have certain inherent rights, of 
which, when they enter into a state of society, they 
cannot by any compact, deprive or divest their pos- 
terity ; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty with 
the means of acquiring and possessing property, and 
pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. 

II. That all power is vested in, and consequently 
derived from, the people ; that magistrates are their 
trustees and servants, and at all time amenable to 
them. 

III. That government is, or ought to be, insti- 
tuted for the common benefit, protection and secur- 
ity of the people, nation or community; of all the 
various modes and forms of government, that is 
best which is capable of producing the greatest de- 
gree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually, 
secured against the danger of maladministration; 
and that, when a government shall be found inade- 
quate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of 
the community hath an indubitable, unalienable and 

207 



208 APPENDIX 

indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish it, in 
such manner as shall be judged most conducive to 
the public weal. 

IV. That no man, or set of men, are entitled to 
exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from 
the community but in consideration of public ser- 
vices, which not being descendible, neither ought 
the offices of magistrate, legislator, or judge to be 
hereditary. 

V. That the legislative, executive and judicial 
powers should be separate and distinct ; and that the 
members thereof may be restrained from oppression, 
by feeling and participating the burthens of the 
people, they should, at fixed periods, be reduced to 
a private station, return into that body from which 
they were originally taken, and the vacancies be sup- 
plied by frequent, certain and regular elections, in 
which all, or any part of the former members to be 
again eligible or ineligible, as the laws shall direct. 

VI. That all elections ought to be free, and that 
all men having sufficient evidence of permanent com- 
mon interest with, and attachment to the community 
have the right of suffrage, and cannot be taxed, or 
deprived of their property for public uses, without 
their own consent, or that of their representatives so 
elected, nor bound by any law to which they have 
not in like manner assented, for the public good. 

VII. That all power of suspending laws, or the 
execution of laws, by any authority, without consent 
of the representatives of the people, is injurious to 
their rights, and ought not to be exercised. 

VIII. That in all capital or criminal prosecutions, 
a man hath a right to demand the cause and nature 
of his accusation, to be confronted with the accusers 
and witnesses, to call for evidence in his favour, 
and to a speedy trial by an impartial jury of twelve 



APPENDIX 209 

men of his vicinage, without whose unanimous con- 
sent he cannot be found guilty; nor can he be com- 
pelled to give evidence against himself; that no man 
can be deprived of his liberty, except by the law of 
the land or the judgment of his peers. 

IX. That excessive bail ought not to be required, 
nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual 
punishments inflicted. 

X. That general warrants, whereby an officer or 
messenger may be commanded to search suspected 
places without evidence of a fact committed, or 
whose offence is not particularly described and sup- 
ported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive, and 
ought not to be granted. 

XI. That in controversies respecting property, and 
in suits between man and man. the ancient trial by 
jury of twelve men is preferable to any other, and 
ought to be held sacred. 

XII. That the freedom of the press is one of the 
great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained 
but by despotic governments. 

XIII. That a well regulated militia, composed of 
the body of the people, trained to arms, is the 
proper, natural, and safe defence of a free State; 
that standing armies in time of peace should be 
avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases 
the military should be under strict subordination to, 
and governed by, the civil power. 

XIV. That the people have a right to uniform 
government; and therefore, that no government 
separate from or independent of the government of 
Virginia, ought to be erected or established within 
the limits thereof. 

XV. That no free government, or the blessing of 
liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a 
firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, 



210 APPENDIX 

frugality and virtue, and by frequent recurrence t) 
fundamental principles. 

XVI. That religion, or the duty which we owe 
to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, 
can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by 
force or violence; and therefore all men are equally 
entitled to the free exercise of religion, according 
to the dictates of conscience, and that it is the duty 
of all to practice Christian forbearance, love and 
charity towards each other. 



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